A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Glory to you, Lord. Jesus said to his disciples, in your prayers, do not rattle on like the pagans. The pagans think that they will win a hearing by the sheer multiplication of words. Do not imitate them.
Your father knows what you need even before you ask him, and this is how you should pray. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us the wrong we have done as we forgive those who have wronged us. Subject us not to the trial, but deliver us from the evil one. If you forgive the faults of others, your heavenly father will forgive you your faults.
If you do not forgive others, neither will your heavenly father forgive you. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
In the last fifteen years or maybe longer than that, there's there has been a wave of enthusiasm for spontaneous prayer. Off the cuff prayer, the prayer, the inspiration of the moment. It used to be if you went into a house for a meal, into a home for a meal, let me correct that, house is not a home, and you were asked to bless the board, it was you used the formula. Now you're expected to follow the our Protestant friends and have a off the cuff spontaneous proclamation telling God how happy you are to be there with all your friends and thanking the everybody for what's on the board, you know, and all that. And that has swept, has swept into Catholicism.
The rosary is gone because that's, you see, it's routine. There's nothing spontaneous, There's nothing inspiring about the rosary you keep just saying, a hail Mary and a hail Mary, you know, who wants to do that? It isn't for an intelligent person, you see. And we are very intelligent. See, that's the first you have to realize that, how mighty intelligent we are.
Now when it comes to prayer, I there was a there was a scene in MASH where the the good priest, the chaplain This is some time ago, but maybe you I've never ever gotten it, because it's so absolutely correct. Where, due to certain circumstances, the chaplain has to do a tracheotomy. They're in a jeep, so all they have is a penknife with a radio talking back to the camp. And so the chaplain is well you know who he was, I forget his name and all that, but anyway there he is, know, was kind a very good fellow, but kind of naive. And there he is with his penknife listening to the radio ready to do this tracheotomy.
When the assistant, another soldier who's there says, father, don't you think before we begin this we ought to say a prayer? Priest thinks that's a good idea. So he says a prayer. You know what prayer he says? The grace before meals.
Because think of the here's a man who knew nothing about surgery going to do a tracheotomy. He was as uptight as he could be. So he wants to pray to God and what comes out? Grace before meals. You see, this business of having spontaneous prayer is fine, I'm all for it.
But who can be spontaneous at at all times of the day? And we were commanded to pray always. Who can make up these spontaneous prayers at meals if you say the grace before meals three times a day and say a thanksgiving after it three times a day for three hundred and sixty five days of the year, and on and on. No one ever tried this in a monastery. And where and I often question where this is done is do they regularly have the grace before meals?
Because if you have, you can't be inspired all the time with something spontaneous and something apropos of the moment. And as one very fine Jesuit writing on this subject pointed out, the consequence of this emphasis on spontaneous prayer is we have stopped praying. And I'm a good example of it. I'm talking from experience. Let's come back to let's come back to Jesus Christ.
Prayer is not an easy thing. Anyone who tells you that prayer is natural, that is the simplest thing in the world, that just talking to your changeless friend, father Duffy's books that used to be so popular, that it's it's such a a a beautiful, comforting, happy, pleasant, desirable. Use all the adjectives you want. I say it's sometimes it is and thank the good lord it is. But let me tell you when sometimes when you most need to pray is when absolutely you are least inclined to pray, and I am not theorizing.
I am not theorizing. What do you do for your inspiration at those moments when when you say, well, God, where in the world are you? Where the fathers think from your thought is God and making any kind of a contact with, when you seem to be abandoned and deserted. These are facts of life. And I'm not talking about big crises, I'm talking about something can happen at noon today.
What do you do then about when you're absolutely parched and dry? When, as Saint John of the Cross says, you're in the dark night of the soul. Where is your inspiration? You're depend on spontaneity there? What are you going to get?
You're going to get an empty can of nothing. And that's what happens. If we it's just like anybody who's tried to write, if you wait to produce writing upon inspiration, you better get a job someplace to keep put bread in your mouth. The disciples asked Jesus, Lord, teach us how to pray. And the son of God, God himself, gave us the formula Gave us a formula.
This is the newer translation, notice they didn't dare to put this translation in the mass. You can't fiddle with the lord's prayer. It's one prayer that all Christians can say. It's one prayer all Christians should say, and it is the prayer which is the model of all prayers. Absolutely the model.
Absolutely the model. Even in the order in which the petitions petitions are are made. Made. I often think when I hear all of these these prayers of a petition at mass, as if God didn't know what was going on, that we've got to remind him, Lord, look, we need this, we need this, we need this. You know, you you begin to wonder, what in the heck is this all about?
Do I have to tell god I need bread? And the answer is yes. And why? I don't know the complete answer to that. I know one answer, and that is Jesus Christ told me to ask him.
He told me to ask him, Lord, give me today my daily bread. Not a bakery full for tomorrow, my daily bread. I beg you to think of the Lord's Prayer and to use it. You can't improve upon it. Why should you expect to improve on something that the son of god gave you?
And so this prayer, the Lord's Prayer, make it something in your daily life. When you hop out of bed in the morning, it a lot of people don't have the time or the gumption or anything to get on their knees and say some prayer. You don't have to. Don't be like the pagans, that just for throwing out a lot of words you're praying devoutly. I come to the highest form of prayer.
And let me warn you, what going to say is not applicable to most of us most of the time, and that includes little old me. The ideal prayer is unattainable for most of us. Well, if it's an ideal, it's unattainable by definition. The courier of ours used to spend hours sitting in his little chapel at ours, sitting. So somebody asked him what they what do you do there?
And he turned to them to turn to the interrog and this is a true story. I mean, this isn't something a fiction. And he simply said, I look at him, and he looks at me. The prayer of contemplation. That's wonderful.
That's wonderful. Saint Theresa of Avila, she'd had it. A lot of the saints have had it, but that is not the bread and the butter type of prayer. None of us is going to achieve that readily. We had may have moments of it, some of us may achieve it, I don't know.
But don't think you're going to start your life of prayer with a prayer of contemplation. You're going to start with what our Lord gave you, the lord's prayer. Make it your own. You can't improve on what the son of god gave you. The name of the father and the son, holy spirit.
Amen.