By 
By Fr Declan Boland
I am sure that most days we ask special favours from God. Sometimes these are urgent and pressing, for example when someone is sick, doing an interview or sitting an important examination.
We may wonder, if God already knows what we need before we ask, and God actually cares about us more than we care for ourselves, then why does Jesus say, “ Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Are we trying to talk God into things? Does the group with the most and best prayers win? Is prayer of petition just another way to get what we want? Or is it to get God on our side?
In every case, notice that we are trying to take control.
Let us address today that one simple and often confused, but important mystery of asking. Why is it good to ask? And what is really happening in prayers of petition or intercession? Are we encouraged to talk God into things? Why does Jesus both tell us to ask and then say, “ Your Father already knows what you need, so do not babble on like the pagans do.” (Matthew 6:7).
I have no doubt that all of our prayers are answered, but not always in the way we think. We ask at times, not to change God but to change ourselves. Prayer is an unbroken relationship with God and with life and creates a result larger than the exchange itself. (That is why Jesus says all prayers are answered, which does not appear to be true according to the evidence!). We may pray for our mother to be cured from her illness and it does not happen. Maybe the answer is that we are given the grace and strength to cope with her loss.
Prayer is not a way to try to control God or even get what we want. As Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel the answer to every prayer is one, the same, and the best: The Holy Spirit! (Luke Ch11:13). God gives us power more than answers.
We must drop any notion that “I deserve,” or “I am owed,” or “I have a right to,” or “I am higher than you.” We are reminded when we pray to stay in the position of a beggar, a petitioner, one who is radically dependent, “poor in spirit,’ which is always spiritually true if we are honest. To know that we are always in need is our fundamental disposition when we pray. We must have no sense of entitlement. This is particularly true of clergy, ministers and those in religious life, or indeed anyone in a position of authority.
We can never engineer or guide our own transformation. If we try it will be totally self-centred and doomed to failure. As I have often said, there is no such thing as DIY spirituality. Everything is pure gift. What we have to do is to clear our hearts and minds, to be detached from so many things, so that we can receive the gift that is being offered to us. Detachment is not easy but it really is the way to prepare for the great gift of God’s grace. This goes against our culture which says, if I try hard enough, and persevere by sheer will-power, I will succeed. This type of thinking does not operate in the spiritual realm. We are beggars totally dependent on the grace of God.
So it is important that you ask, seek and knock to keep yourself in right relationship with Life itself. Life is a gift, totally given to you without cost, every day of it and every part of it. A daily “attitude of gratitude” will keep your hands open to expect that life will be given to you. Those who live with such humble and open hands receive life’s, “gifts, full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over into their lap.” (Luke 6:38).
If you are not radically grateful every day, resentment always takes over. For some reason, to ask “for your daily bread” is to know that it is being given.To not ask is to take your own efforts, needs and goals – and yourself – far too seriously.
Prayers of intercession or petition are one way of being totally honest with the Source of Life itself.
We are all totally needy, a deep truth that is now almost entirely lost in our self-made, can-do and climbing culture.
We are all and forever beggars before God.
