SATURDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Jas 5: 13-20; Ps 141: 1-3, 8; Mk 10: 13-16
PRAYER CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS
Christian Prayer is not an activity or a ritual to be emulated rather a personal love relationship with God to be cultivated. The more this bond of love relationship grows the more we grow in the likeness of God. That is the reason St. Paul says that the goal of every Christian should be to put on the “same mind as that of Lord Jesus.” Love and Faith are the intrinsic ingredients of this bond of relationship. As our love for God increases our faith in Him also increases, leading to our total trust and confidence in Him. It is our total confidence alone that will help us to abandon ourselves in His hands and to be transformed in His likeness.
The Scripture uses the metaphor of “to be like a little child” to express the state of likeness of God in a Christian. St. Paul expresses it well, “You are not under the law of flesh, you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you (Rom 8:9). The law governed life has to be overcome through the Love governed life in our quest for to be like a child. Jesus calls the little children unto himself and says, let the little children come to me and be with me all the time so that they may fill their hearts with my Spirit. When the intimacy with Jesus is intensified in Prayer, divine blessings of love will shower itself upon us transforming us in His likeness.
The growth of divine love in a Christian is also the growth of communion with the Church. As the gradation of love for our God increases the gradation of our communion with the church also increases and vice versa. That is the reason, James advises us, that when someone falls sick (in Biblical language, sickness is our loss of connection with God), call the elders of the church and pray, let the church intercede for the sick person and bless him/her. If the prayer is done in faith, one will be restored back to health, simultaneously restoring back the communion with God and His visible body, the Church.
Response: Let my prayer be accepted as incense before you.
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