Deepening Your Faith Through Prayer

You shall be my people, and I will be your God 30:22

Jeremiah 30:1-2, 12-15, 18-22
Matthew 14:22-36

No relationship can survive without conversation; we call conversation with God “prayer”. In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us an example of prayer. After long days of teaching and healing, “he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening He (Jesus) was there alone… During the fourth watch of the night,he came toward his discoples, walking on the sea.”(Matthew 14:23-25)

In today’s first reading, we are told that while Jeremiah was in prison (as often happens to prophets), he received this message: “Call to me, and I will answer you; I will tell you great things beyond the reach of your knowledge.” (Jeremiah 33:3) Jeremiah’s prayer, like all good conversations, had some speaking and some listening. And these conversations with God sustained him in his forty difficult years as a prophet.

In those forty years that Jeremiah ministered as a prophet, there were many times when the people strayed from their relationship with God, causing Jeremiah much sorrow and the people much confusion and suffering, some of which are described in graphic detail in our first reading of today.
Here, the prophet Jeremiah is once again giving a message of God’s love to a people in trouble.

In the course of our lives, we too sometimes, feel vulnerable, powerless and lost, and like St. Peter in today’s Gospel, we may fear we are sinking, or even drowning.

Acknowledging our situation therefore can bring us to a deeper dependency on God just as we hear Peter saying “Lord, save me!”The Lord is ready to save us let us deepen our faith and trust in Him through our prayers and works of charity.

Credit:
This article is written by Rev Fr. Joseph Osho OSJ. Please visit his personal blog @ https://www.blogger.com/profile/10377666931103644634
For juicier articles.