A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. When Jesus had finished his discourse in the hearing of the people, he entered the city of Capernaum. That's up in the northwest corner of the lake, Lake Galilee, of course. Now a centurion, a Roman officer, had a servant whom he held in very high esteem, who was at that moment extremely ill, even to the point of death. When the centurion, the Roman, heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders notice, he sent Jews to a Jew.
So he sent some Jewish elders to Jesus asking him to come and save the life of his servant. Upon approaching Jesus, they asked him earnestly, he deserves this favor from you because he loves our people and even has built a synagogue for us. Jesus set out with period. When he was only a short distance from the house, however, the centurion, the Roman soldier, the Roman officer, sent some friends to tell Jesus, sir, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter my house. That is why I did not presume to come to you myself.
Just give the order, and my servant will be cured. For I too am a man who knows the meaning of command, having soldiers under my jurisdiction and authority. I say to one of them, on your way, and off he goes. And to another, come here, and the man comes. And to my slave, do this, and he does it.
Jesus showed amazement at hearing this and turned to the crowd that was following him and said, I tell you, I have never found so much faith among the Israelites. That was a slap in the face to the Jews. When the deputation returned to the house, they found the servant of the Roman officer in perfect health. And this is the gospel, the good news of the Lord. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen. Saint Paul, speaking to Timothy, his dearly beloved friend this morning, mentions a subject which I cannot overlook in spite of the many attractive aspects of this reading this morning. This is one of my favorites from Saint Luke. The first thing that Paul says to Timothy is to pray. Pray.
Pray. Return to turn to God with prayers of petition and thanksgiving, and he mentioned some others. Yesterday, I devoted my well chosen remarks to an address which our Holy Father gave to 23 bishops of The United States last labor day, one week ago today. It was about a forty minute address. Now, the public press emphasized what Christ said what the Pope said about marriage, sex, the ordination of women, they headlined that.
But actually, the document itself, if you just take the amount of space given to the subjects treated, has more to say about prayer than it has to say about anything else. The pope emphasizes two aspects of prayer. First, the responsibility of bishops to answer notice how he put this, to answer the plea of millions of your people to teach them to pray. And the second thing was, be men of prayer yourself. You're not gonna do much teaching unless you pray yourself.
But he put that first. The obligation of bishops to answer the plea of their people, teach us to pray. And he said, it's easy. All you have to do is what Christ did. Give him them the Lord's prayer and catechize them.
That's the word. And he was speaking English. So we have the word catechism coming and catechizing and catechesis coming back into the English language for which we all can return return hearty thanks to god. You know, in the last fifteen years or so, maybe twenty, we got on to this idea that prayer must be spontaneous. That we must it must come out of our hearts effusively.
Well, let me tell you. If you for example, when you is it a good idea to say prayer to say a prayer at meals? Yes or no? Well, supposing you are daring enough to say yes, I think it's a good idea to say a prayer at meals. Now you have three meals a day, seven days a week.
Are you going to be spontaneous 21 times a week? And if you say prayers after the meal, you're going to have to be spontaneous 21 more times, which is 42 times. If my cal I don't have my calculator with me, but that's the way it seems to add up. Are you going to be that spontaneous? You see, this idea that prayer must be so off the cuff and the contrary side, downgrading what we call rote prayer, prayers from memory, formula prayers.
See, the two went together. So much so that the Holy See time and again has tried to tell priests that you've got to have a canon of the mass that's approved, because some are still applying that same thinking to the mass. Try it. All I can say, if you want to be men or women of prayer, try this spontaneous prayer twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and see where you wind up. I'll tell you where you will wind up.
You will wind up not praying at all. And I say that on very good authority and from experience. There was an episode in MASH, I'll never forget where the priest, the chaplain, has to do a track a tracheotomy. I didn't pronounce that right, that's okay, you know what I mean, you slice somebody's throat. He wasn't that was not part of his becoming a priest, learning how to cut people's throats.
So here they are out on some place on in a jeep. He has another companion with him, and they're bringing a wounded man in, and the only thing that's going to save the man's life is to get some breath into his lungs. So they get in touch with the base, and on a walkie talkie he's getting instructions to how to do his tracheotomy with a penknife. Both the priest and his the other man were a little bit tense about the situation. So the assistant to the priest, the other man says, father, don't you think we should say a prayer?
The priest says, I think that'd be a good idea. So he says a prayer. You know what he says? The grace before meals. That's the you see, what all I mean to say is this, when we need to pray, when we need to pray, lots of times a formula is the only thing that will come to mind, even if it is the prayer, the blessing of the board when you're about to cut somebody's throat to save his life.
I in the monasteries where people actually do pray, where they're committed to prayer. Can you imagine someone getting up 40 times a week before the community and spontaneously effusing with some kind of off the cuff prayer? It's impossible. So do not downgrade formula prayer. They are the anchor hole.
They're the words of our childhood that come to us. Respect them and love them and use them. Now, you'll hear two views of prayer. Some will say it's so easy. Others will say it is so difficult.
All I can say after seventy six years is I belong to the second category. Prayer is not a natural thing. Prayer is not easy, not at all easy. And those who say it is easy, I wonder how much they've tried it. That is prayer, not just prayer petition, the gimmes.
And when you come down to it, when you say, How do I pray? Mystery. That is no mystery. Oh, it may be, I say, fearfully difficult. Remember, I picked this quotation up.
I did not read it in her own writings, but I picked this quotation up from Mugbridge. He's the one that would have picked it up someplace. Where Saint Teresa, the great Saint Teresa, Saint Teresa of Avila, who wrote who the mystic, who was so given to prayer, she said many a time when she had finished her prayers, the Amen was, Thank God, that's over. That's a perfectly human reaction. But she prayed.
She prayed. And in many instances, the the least of myself that goes into the prayer, the least I seem to get out of the prayer indicates the best kind of prayer. Now when you come down to the nitty gritty and and join those apostles, join Christ's disciples who went to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray. Christ gave us the answer. You don't have to look around.
You don't have to be a theologian. All you have to do is to know the Lord's Prayer. And there you have it. The whole philosophy, psychology, or any theology, or anything you want of prayer, it's in the lord's prayer. Are you amazed?
My friends, that prayer came from the son of god. The name of the father and of the son, holy spirit. Amen.