Monday, December 18, 2006 Alipio: What counts in prayer? By Fr. Jose Alipio Lifelines
Mt 6:7-15
IN ALMOST every religion, serious prayer is made into an ordeal. The underlying idea is that we show our seriousness in prayer by the investment in time, energy and money that we make in prayer.
In Hinduism, prayers are accompanied by elaborate ceremonies that include food offerings to the gods. In Buddhism, prayer in the form of meditation requires long hours of sitting each day. In Islam, prayers are mandatory five times a day, always facing toward Mecca. At prayer time, everything stops in its tracks. In native American religion, prayer is an arduous period of solitude and suffering. Nor have we Christians escaped the idea that prayer must be demanding to be efficacious. A hundred "Hail Marys" is better than ten because it takes longer and it is harder to do.
But turning prayer into an ordeal does not guarantee the seriousness of the prayer or the outcome of the prayer. In fact, Jesus took a pretty dim view of such carryings-on.
He put it bluntly to his disciples: "In your prayer, so not rattle on like the pagans. They think they will win a hearing by the sheer multiplication of words. Do not imitate them."
Going to such lengths in prayer is unnecessary. First, because God knows what we need before we ask. We do not have to spell it out in detail for fear that God might overlook something if we didn't. Second, an answer to prayer is not a reward for the suffering or inconvenience we went to in order to pray. What counts in prayer is always qualitative rather than quantitative. The quality of our heart rather than the quantity of our words is what matters.
