DEVELOP A CHILDLIKE TRUST IN THE POWER OF PRAYERS. (Homily for May 21, 2016. Saturday of the 7th week in Ordinary Time.)


Bible Study:  James 5, 13 to 20 and Mark 13, 13 to 16.


Prayer is the key. Prayer is the key. Jesus started with prayers and ended with prayers. Prayer is the master key.

Today, St. James concludes his powerful message with a word on prayer. “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise.” What prayers and praises can achieve in a day, all the guns and weapons of mass destruction known to man cannot achieve in a year! The remedy for suffering is prayer. Nothing else draws God’s attention as much as prayer.

“Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” St. James here speaks on the sacrament of the anointing of the sick and the practice of inviting the priest to pray. It is a sacrament that not only restores physical health, it also forgives sins. It is not a last sacrament so to say and we should never be afraid of calling the priest to pray as many times as possible.

“Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.  Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.” Come to think of it, just one man’s prayer prevented rain from dropping on the entire earth, a man just like us in every way. Elijah did not have two heads, or four hands. If he could achieve so much, then we too can achieve even more by our fervent prayer.

Honestly, prayer is a childish activity. I say this because one needs to be childish to BELIEVE that with just a few words said kneeling, things can begin to happen in one’s favour. We adults like to think the opposite, we like to assume that prayer does not put food on one’s table, so we would rather go out there and work things out for ourselves, we would rather sweat than just believe in prayer. This is why most adults do not pray. They work all day, close very late from work and come home extremely tired and when asked to pray, they say, “I am too tired.” We are only tired when it comes to something we consider not important.

Hence, Jesus says, “unless we become childish, unless we humble ourselves like children, unless we receive the kingdom of God like children, there is no way we can enter heaven.” The extent of our faith in the power of prayer is a determining factor of our level of childishness as regards the kingdom of God.

Underestimating the power of prayer is a sign that we are no longer children, it is a sign that we are now age-mates with God and we are capable of getting things done on our own. To assume that prayer is wasting of time or that prayer does not solve any problem is to say that God is either too deaf to hear our prayer or that he is too weak to grant what we pray for. Indeed, anyone who underestimates the power of prayer does not even know God at all.

Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, grant me the humility of bringing myself down as a child so that I would begin to trust again in the power of prayers. Amen.


Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. Happy Weekend rest.

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