We know that being human means we cannot escape suffering (of
one kind or another) and death. Why, then, do we pray at these times if our
prayer isn’t going to change those realities?
Humans have also learned over the centuries that to remember
(re-member) is to make present. Therefore, prayer can be thought of as our way
of making God present. When we remember God (which is one definition of prayer),
God becomes present to us. Thus when Jesus called out on the cross “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?” he was, through his prayer of despair, making
God present. And clearly God did become present to him, because Jesus was able
to place his spirit in God’s hands with his last breath.
When we call on God, we have faith that, in spite of our
pain and fear, our suffering and death will be transformed into new life. That
takes a lot of trust. The writer Brian Doyle concludes his essay “A Prayer for
Pete” with these words: “So a prayer for my friend Pete, in gathering darkness,
and a prayer for us all, that we may be brave enough to pray, for it is an act
of love, and love is why we are here.”
If the meaning of our time on earth is to learn to know and
love God through the joys and limitations of being human, we’re only going to
achieve that through the act of love that is prayer.
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