Meeting 2. - Thy Will Be Done¶
Goal¶
To reflect and rediscover the meaning of the words “Thy Will Be Done” in one’s life. To understand the mystery of seemingly unanswered prayer.
Prayer¶
I don’t impose what anyone likes. Though maybe in this atmosphere - so that the Our Father appears.
Introduction - Our Father¶
The Our Father prayer for us, as Christians, is a special prayer. It is the first prayer that Jesus taught us. And He taught it because His disciples asked Him “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11,1-2). And Jesus taught. However, the question is:
To what extent is this most important prayer for us a conscious prayer?
What do I really expect, how do I understand it?
Have I ever reflected on it at all?
Many titles are given to God: Almighty, King, Most High, etc. Some of them are simpler and more appealing to our human mind, others less so. Jesus starts as simply as possible “Our Father”. Simply and humanly. After all, “dad” is one of the first words we utter in life.
Even more - Jesus calls Him ‘Abba’ - which means “loving Father”. At this moment, all boundaries, stiffness, distance disappear. The Father is someone good, close, NOT a stranger. Someone we want to talk to. We want to, not have to. To speak, not to recite.
In reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer, this is the first thing we need to pay attention to. When I talk to dad [father, as one prefers], when I tell him something, ask for something - I speak with my whole being, I speak to someone close, and above all I think about what I’m saying. I think, that is, I am fully aware and have conviction in my words. We need to translate this into our relationship with the Father. We need to remember this.
Does the word Father find its justification in my prayer, do I have such a relationship with God as with dad [father] (close, sincere, true, trusting). Or is this Father there, but at the same time there is distance and unnaturalness?
Warning
When asking the above questions, one should be careful about what the participants’ relationships with their fathers are like - especially if the animator knows that these relationships are not “close, sincere, true, trusting”.
Introduction - Thy Will Be Done¶
Unfortunately, there is no time to reflect on the entire Lord’s Prayer. We want to focus on its fragment.
From God, as a gift, we all received freedom. What freedom is in our life and how it manifests itself - these are the topics of yesterday’s meeting. Today we take a step further. We want to confront this gift with the words “Thy Will Be Done”.
What is God’s will for me? How do I understand these words?
According to the Catechism:
the will of the Father is “that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2,4)
“for He wants all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3,9)
The whole will of God “that you love one another as I have loved you”
God leaves us free space to act => we have freedom after all. We received signposts to follow. If we observe them, apply them, act according to the Father’s will.
Okay, everything is fine. Jesus says “Pray continually” and “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you” (Jn 16, 23). Ok, I pray, I ask… then I say “Thy Will Be Done”…
Since God’s will is our conversion, coming to salvation, why are not all my requests heard (after all, sometimes I know that what I ask for is good)
Why pray, if God will act His way anyway?
Saint Augustine said that God always hears man, but in His own way, not necessarily as we would like and when we would like.
There was a certain sick boy. His mother had been praying for his healing for many, many years. She went on pilgrimages 4 times a year, fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays, attended Mass. The boy’s condition not only did not improve, but worsened. Finally, the boy died. The desperate mother saw no meaning in life. When she was already standing on the bridge, wanting to jump into the river, a priest was passing nearby, returning from a sick person. He stopped the woman and began to talk with her. The woman, full of regret, cried out that for years she had been praying for her son’s health, so that he could finally live normally, and it was all for nothing. And the priest replied “You prayed for the health of the body - God gave the health of the soul, you prayed for earthly life - God gave eternal life”. God always listens and hears - but in His own way and in His own time.
God hears requests, but He hears the requests of His children. The condition here is the Father-Child relationship. In this relationship, trust is the key issue. Childlike trust.
Saint Augustine says that God always gives more than man asks. “God does not sleep, and even wakes us up, so that we may present our requests to Him” [condition: Father-child relationship]
Do not stop asking until you receive, at the end of the request is the gift of receiving. (…) Many enter the church and do this many times, and not seeing what they said, they move their lips, and they themselves do not hear. You yourself do not hear your request, and you want God to hear. Your body was in the church, but your mind was outside.
—Saint John Chrysostom
How many times have you asked for something without much faith in being heard?
How many times has the request become a routine listing of things, as if out of habit?
Summary¶
God encourages prayer:
Persistent (!) [Lk 11,5-13]
God even invites to such persistent prayer - He as Father does not take it that way! Persistence is not audacity!
Trusting (!) (the one asking believed in friendship, that’s why he dared to go for bread in the middle of the night. Trust)
And again what was already there - the Father-Child relationship .. based on trust!
Let’s summarize:
Ask and it will be given to you
—Lk 11,9
Ok… I ask but I don’t receive…
You do not receive because you ask with wrong motives
—Jas 4,3
What does wrong mean? Jesus gives the answer:
Let it be done to you according to your faith
—Mt 8,13
Faith is needed for the request to be heard.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
—1 Jn 5,14
Our requests are not needed by God. They are needed by us. By asking, I invite God into my life. And everything now comes down to trust. Jesus said that all requests are heard by God (Mt 11,24). So, if I BELIEVE these words, it means there is no unanswered prayer. Why do I so often have a completely different impression? Because we receive, but differently than we imagine it ourselves. God must be left freedom [just as He gave it to us] in deciding what to give us. Thy Will Be Done God - means, God give me what I ask for, but in the way You want, not the way I want. On Your terms, not mine.
To ask with faith = to ask according to God’s will