{"id":9840,"date":"2017-08-05T12:09:10","date_gmt":"2017-08-05T11:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=9840"},"modified":"2017-08-05T12:10:09","modified_gmt":"2017-08-05T11:10:09","slug":"prayer-with-an-infallible-guarantee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=9840","title":{"rendered":"Prayer with an Infallible Guarantee"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NOVEMBER 29, 2009\u00a0http:\/\/ronrolheiser.com\/<\/a><\/div>\n
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There are several places in the gospels where Jesus assures us that if we ask for something in his name we are guaranteed to receive it.<\/p>\n

In Matthew\u2019s gospel, for example, he says: Ask and you shall receive, because everyone who asks receives. In John\u2019s gospel he promises us that if you ask anything in my name, the Father will grant it.<\/p>\n

Why doesn\u2019t this always work? Sometimes we pray for something, pray for it in Jesus\u2019 name, and our request isn\u2019t granted. Sometimes we literally storm heaven with our prayers and heaven seems shut against them. Did Jesus make an idle promise when he assured us that God would give us anything we ask for, if we ask in his name?<\/p>\n

Spiritual writers and apologists have offered a number of answers to this question: Maybe our prayer wasn\u2019t answered because we asked for the wrong thing. A loving mother wouldn\u2019t give her unknowing child a knife to play with, would she? Or perhaps our prayer was answered, but at a deeper level and only in time will we understand that answer. C.S. Lewis once quipped that we will spend most of eternity thanking God for those prayers of ours that he didn\u2019t answer!<\/p>\n

There\u2019s merit in all these answers, though they are not the answers that Jesus used. Indeed, when he promised us that our prayers would be answered, he didn\u2019t add that it is on the condition that we ask for the right thing. He invited us to ask for anything in his name. He didn\u2019t specify that it be the right thing. So why aren\u2019t our prayers always answered?<\/p>\n

Jerome Murphy-O\u2019Connor, a renowned scripture scholar, suggests that in Matthew\u2019s gospel, as well as in much of the rest of the New Testament, prayer of petition is linked to concrete charitable action within the community. Hence to pray truly for someone involves also reaching out concretely to help that person. To pray truly for justice and peace involves working actively for justice and peace. When we pray \u201cthrough Christ\u201d we pray not just through the resurrected Christ in heaven but also through the \u201cbody of Christ\u201d on earth, ourselves. We need to be involved in helping answer our own prayers. Thus when our prayer doesn\u2019t seem to be answered it might mean that we, Christ\u2019s body on earth, have not been enough involved in trying to answer our own prayer, that we haven\u2019t in fact prayed \u201cthrough Christ\u201d.<\/p>\n

Karl Rahner, in commenting on Jesus\u2019 promise in John\u2019s gospel that anything we ask for in his name will be given us, offers us this reflection:<\/p>\n

To ask for something in Jesus\u2019 name does not mean that we invoke him verbally and then desire whatever our turbulent, divided heart or our appetite, our wretched mania for everything and anything, happens to hanker for. No, asking in Jesus\u2019 name means entering into him, living by him, being one with him in love and faith. If he is in us by faith, in love, in grace, in his Spirit, then our petition arises from the centre of our being, which is himself, and if all our petition and desire is gathered up and fused in him and his Spirit, then the Father hears us. Then our petition becomes simple and straightforward, harmonious, sober, and unpretentious. Then what St. Paul says in the letter to the Romans applies to us: We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us, praying the one prayer, \u201cAbba! Father!\u201d He longs for that from which the Spirit and Jesus himself have proceeded: he longs for God, he asks God for God, on our behalf he asks of God. Everything is included and contained in this prayer. \u2026. [If we pray in this way] we shall see that God really answers our prayer, in one way or another. Then we shall no longer feel this \u201cone way or the other\u201d is a feeble excuse offered by the pious, and the Gospel, for unanswered prayer. No. Our prayer is answered, but precisely because it is prayer in Jesus\u2019 name; and what we ultimately pray for is for the Lord to grow in our lives, to fill our existence with himself, to triumph, to gather into one our scattered life, the thousand and one desires of which we are made. \u2026 To pray in Jesus\u2019 name is to have one\u2019s prayer answered, to receive God and God\u2019s blessing, and then, even amid tears, even in pain, even in indigence, even when it seems that one has still not been heard, the heart rests in God, and that-while we are still here on pilgrimage, far from the Lord-is perfect joy.<\/p>\n

Until we have prayed like this, Jesus can truthfully say to us: \u201cUp to now, you have not asked for anything in my name. You may have tried to, you may have meant to, but you have not yet made me the strength and burden of your prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOVEMBER 29, 2009\u00a0http:\/\/ronrolheiser.com\/ There are several places in the gospels where Jesus assures us that if we ask for something in his name we are guaranteed to receive it. In Matthew\u2019s gospel, for example, he says: Ask and you shall … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fr-ron-rolheiser-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9840"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9842,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9840\/revisions\/9842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}