(May Reflection)

My Life of Prayer

People flock to churches or chapels when they are facing a lot of problems and they don’t anymore know what to do. At this point, they believe God is their last and only hope. The more popular churches they usually go to are the Church of St. Jude, the Church of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, and the Our Mother of Perpetual Help Church in Baclaran. I have been to these places and have witnessed the huge crowd of people bringing their supplications to God. These places are like public markets because people come from different walks of life. There were even rich people or people in authority who knelt along with the masses. I had wondered what this people still wanted from God when they already have so much not like the poor people. Then I realized that you can have all the material things in life but not everything can be bought with money. I feel that many Filipinos look at the Church as they would a hospital. They would only visit Churches when they need a favor from God. They do not see the many graces God has already blessed them with, graces for which they should be thankful. I would sometimes ask myself whether the Church dispenses medicines that can be asked for in prayer to remove all the problems that we are facing.

I have learned that there are many types of prayer. We have the vocal prayer which often is a recitation of a fixed formula. In the Constitutions and Regulation of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, there is a section entitled: “In Dialogue with the Lord” where it gives instruction with regard to the different prayers that we have to recite vocally or as an assembly. As I read it, I was really amazed because I personally was in formation under the Salesians for nine years. In the end, the prayers were just recited mentally and not from the heart. I am guilty of this one especially when I feel tired of prayer because I keep on repeating and repeating the same words. The other type of prayer is the personal prayer, in this we are more connected with our God intimately. It was only later in my formation that I was really oriented with prayer. In the early part of my life in the seminary, every time I would enter the chapel and kneel to pray, I always feel that I am talking to the walls; I would feel that there is no one in the other end because I don’t really feel anything. In the Handbook of Religious Life, it says there that if, while in prayer, I ask too many questions, like “Is there someone in the other end?” then I am not praying. I personally would sit inside the chapel and would start to talk to him but the reply I get is the sound of the bird in the morning or the sound of the crickets in the evening.

In the Gospel of Luke, his disciples approach Jesus and ask him to teach them how to pray. Jesus did teach them. I can honestly say that this was what I was asking God before. I remember a Salesian who once told us in a recollection talk that before we even ask God to grant us our petitions, He already knows what we want. What we do in prayer is an act of humility, acknowledging that we need Him.

I truly believe that God answers our prayers but sometimes not in the way that we want it to be. Human as we are, our tendency is to be angry with God because He did not grant our petition the way we want it to be. It is only later that we realize what He did to us was better than what we wanted.

Now, when I pray to Him, I would thank Him for everything, both good and bad. I know that He allows these things to happen so that I will be able to grow and learn something good from it. I believe that when I pray to Him, He hears it and He shows me the answers through the things that are happening around me. I can truly say that prayer for me is my colloquy with Him. He is quite the listener and He is very patient in listening to me.