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Words From Fr. Michael

07.25.2010

Why do we pray?  We pray not for God’s sake, but for our own.  We pray because voicing our praise, expressing our need and offering our thanks and prayers help us to know who we are before God and all others.  We pray not to inform God of anything but to sensitize our own hearts and minds and souls to the many overtures of God, be they large or small.  We pray to acknowledge that we are not the center of the universe.  We pray to surrender ourselves to the Creator, who brought us to life, and to our Redeemer, who has saved us from death.

Our prayer takes many different forms.  Sometimes we ask God for something; sometimes we praise God for who God is.  At other times we may thank God for what God has done; and we may ask God to help someone else.  All of these forms of prayer: petition, praise, thanksgiving, and intercession connect us to God.  They help us foster a relationship.  Those who have no faith might describe our actions as crazy, since it may seem to them that we are only having a one-sided conversation.  But as believers, we trust that God is there, and that our prayer deepens our relationship with Him.