Asking God for Help: What do we pray for?

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B
Acts 9.26-31 Psalm 22 1 John 3.18-24 John 15.1-8

How many times have you been asked a question like this: Will you say a prayer for my mother – she is having surgery next week? Or: Will you pray for my son, he just got laid off and is looking for a job? Or: I have to make an important decision soon- will you please say a prayer for me? I imagine that, for many of us, we get these requests often, and we may even be the person asking for the prayers. It’s a natural part of who we are as Christians, to pray, and especially to pray for one another. But why do we do it? And what is the purpose of these prayers? If we say we believe in a God who knows everything – past, present, and future – why do we bother telling Him things He already knows? And if we believe that God is all-loving and all-merciful, why do we need to ask him to love someone, as if he could decide not to be loving? And then there’s this line from today’s gospel: “Ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.” Yeah, right – we know that doesn’t always work. So what are these prayers all about?

Intercessory prayers – those prayers in which we ask for something – can help turn us away from ourselves and toward others.* By praying for another person, we attune ourselves to that person’s needs, to their hurting or suffering, to their worry or anxiety. We learn compassion. As individuals, we each have a connection with every other human being – we are all made in the image and likeness of God, each and every one of us is made to be like Christ. And so when we pray for someone else, we make a connection to the other person through Christ, the one who connects us – when we pray for someone, we touch them on the level of the soul, a level that is much deeper even than physical contact. That connection – that prayerful presence – is more powerful and effective than anything else we could ever do. That part of prayer – the connection – is easy. The challenge of intercessory prayer is figuring out what to ask for. Too often, in our prayer, we try to tell God what to do – let the biopsy show that there is no cancer; help me get an A on this test. But what we think is the best thing that can happen in a given situation is not always the case when you look at the big picture, when you see things from God’s perspective. God only wants what is good for us, but often we are blind to how something that seems to be causing pain or suffering can be good. Intercessory prayer connects us to Christ, and it helps us to understand what God intends for us – it makes the connection between us, another person, and God clear and strong, helping us find God in whatever situation we find ourselves.

But intercessory prayer not just something we do on our own, as individuals. Right in the middle of the Mass, there is a time set aside for prayer. These prayers are sometimes called different things – General Intercessions, Petitions, Prayers of the Faithful. I like the term General Intercessions, because it describes what these prayers are supposed to be. They are intercessions – we are asking God for something, not thanking Him or praising Him. And that is an important thing to do – to ask – to look both at ourselves and at the rest of the world to see where we most need God’s help. But they are also general – they are not just my own prayer, but prayers for the whole world, for all people, for peace, for life, for the sick and those who have died. These prayers should be ones that we can all pray – and they should be prayers that we all need to voice. The General Intercessions at Mass always follow a pattern – they begin with prayers for the church, followed by prayers for the world, for those burdened by any kind of difficulty, and finally for the local community. Of course, we each bring our own prayers to each Mass – sometimes, they may be included in the General Intercessions, sometimes not. But we should still pray for those personal intentions. As baptized people, we bring our common prayers before the Lord, and as we pray the General Intercessions, we each add the personal prayers that come from our hearts, and together we lift them up to the Lord.

So what about that line in the Gospel – that whatever we want will be done for us, as long as we ask. It is true, but we also have to look at the line that comes before this one – Jesus tells us that as long as we remain in him, then whatever we ask for will be granted. That’s the key – we must remain in Christ. When we ask God for something, we try to find out God’s will, because He always knows what is best for us. And we find that the best prayer of all is the one that comes at the beginning of the prayer Christ taught us: “Father, thy will be done.”

* This paragraph is indebted to Fr. Mark O’Keefe, OSB, Priestly Prayer: Reflections on Prayer in the Life of a Priest (Saint Meinrad School of Theology 2002), Chapter 2: Priest as Intercessor.