Dairy Of St Faustina

Gal 2:1-2,7-14
Luke 11:1-4

Lord teach us to pray.”   Simon requests, in today’s Gospel.  How would you answer that if you were asked to teach someone to pray? I am glad Luke includes this text in his gospel. For it gives a sample of what prayer is or could be.  Plus, to have it coming from the mouth of Jesus, how great is that!  

The Lord’s prayer in the gospel reading is a complete form of prayer encapsulating all the major types of prayer. Christ Himself always prayed to God the Father, especially at all the key moments of His life as God’s beloved Son. In teaching us how to pray, therefore, He not only invites us to pray always, but He also unveils before us prayer as the pathway to gaining intimacy with God. That is why, as God’s sons and daughters, we can call God Abba Father in prayer. And when we pray with confidence, He hears us and answers us as our loving Father when we know and mean what we say.

Ministerially, I have found teaching a person to pray beyond some of the basic elements is difficult.  Prayer is different for each person.  It is different for introverts than for extroverts.  It is different for children than it is for adults.  And hopefully our prayer changes as we age.  I do believe our prayer styles and preferences change as we age and have more life experience to reflect upon.

However, In the Lord’s Prayer, the will of God is key to all our petitions and supplication. The recognition of God’s will helps us to place everything in the hands of God. If prayer really is about spending time with God and we understand to even a small degree that God really cares about us, then prayer is about sitting in the presence of one who really loves you and cares about you.   Good prayer should be something you look forward to, and you relish the experience and commitment of God’s activity in your life.  

Saint Faustina , whom the Church celebrates today, is the secretary of Divine Mercy. the Lord Jesus entrusted to Sister Faustina a mission for all humanity: to make known again God’s merciful love towards every human being, to pass on a new form of worship of God’s mercy, and to inspire a movement of renewal in the spirit of evangelical trust in God’s mercy for mankind.

In her Diary, titled ‘Divine Mercy in My Soul’, we see her encounter with Our Lord and that union with God is possible fir all of us at each moment. The Diary encourages us to live an intensive interior life and how to master the difficult art of love of one’s neighbor. Her calling was not only to make known the mercy of God to mankind but practice mercy towards others herself.

The Lord’s Prayer in Luke is a petition for all our needs, the greatest of which is the Holy Spirit, because ultimately it is the Holy Spirit who empowers us to fulfill God’s will by living in the holiness of God’s name, receiving worthily the Eucharist, forgiving those who hurt us, praying unceasingly, and choosing God before and above any other solution to the problems and challenges of life just like Faustina who became a missionary of mercy. We pray that the Lord may help us to be kind and forgiving towards others as He has been towards us. Amen.

Fr Joseph Osho