Honesty in Prayer

In today's first reading, 1 Samuel 1: 9-20, Hannah pours out her soul to the Lord, expressing her deep sorrow at not being able to bear children and enduring Penninah's  repeated insults about her barrenness.  "In her bitterness she prayed to the Lord, weeping copiously, and she made a vow promising:  "O Lord of hosts,  if you look with pity on the misery of your handmaid, if you remember me and do not forget me, if you give your handmaid a male child, I will give him to the Lord for as long as he lives; neither wine nor liquor shall  he drink, and no razor shall ever touch his head.'" Her emotional expression of her grief leads Eli, the priest, to think that she is drunk and, insultingly, he asks her:  "How long will you make a drunken show of yourself?  Sober up from your wine!"  Being the strong woman that she is, Hannah stands up to the priest and reveals her soul to him, telling him that she is  not drunk but is expressing  her misery to the Lord on being childless.  Eli realizes that he has judged her wrongly and says to her: "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him."  Hannah then asked him to think kindly of her!

God did hear Hannah's prayer and she conceived a son, Samuel, whom she dedicated to the Lord!

What do we learn from this Scripture passage?  Number one, to bare our souls to the Lord in prayer, as Hannah did. God wants us to be honest with Him and not pretend that everything is okay when, in fact, we are in misery. God cares about our sufferings but we need to be open about the pain we are experiencing.  Only then can God help us.  Number two, to be honest with others who make fun of us and not withdraw into silence, bearing the insults and repressing our sorrow.  Repressed feelings do not go away but fester until such time as we embrace them and are honest with ourselves. Only then do we experience the freedom and vindication that Hannah experienced when she confronted Eli, not in anger but in truth. Cooperating with grace, Eli realized that he had misjudged her, wished her peace and prayed that God would respond positively to her. Even if Hannah had not gotten a positive response from Eli, the truth freed her from becoming resentful.

What do you, do I, do with our bitterness? our hurts? our misery?  our concerns?  Do we, in fact, go to the Lord and bare our souls to Him?  During one of my prayer hours, I was silent about an issue that was troubling me. The Lord confronted me and said something like:"I know that you are covering up an issue rather than being honest with me! I can only help you if you open your heart to me and share your sorrow and the source of that sorrow."  Every time I lay my heart bare to the Lord, I am amazed at His response and the peace that floods my soul. If I am not honest and leave prayer without having shared my true concerns, I take my  negative feelings and unresolved issue with me, as I certainly did not leave them with God! How sad when that happens and how sad God, too, must be when I do that!

What about you?

Honesty with the Lord

The Gospel for today, Luke 6: 36-38, opens with the challenge to “[b]e merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.”  The image comes to me of Mary of Magdala washing the feet of Jesus and Simon, the Pharisee, thinking to himself: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is that is touching him and what a bad name she has.”  Jesus immediately confronts Simon and says to him, among other things, “…I tell you that her sins, her many sins, must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown such great love.”  The situation in which we find ourselves is no different from the woman who washed Jesus’ feet, as acknowledged in the first reading of today’s Mass, Daniel 9: 4b-10.  Daniel says to the Lord: “ Lord,….we have sinned, been wicked and done evil; we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws.” Yes, each of us has transgressed against the Lord. We have done so individually as well as collectively, as we are one Body in Christ, brothers and sisters in the Lord. The sin of one is the sin of many and the repentance of one is also the repentance of many.  In Christ Jesus we are all one.  We rise with one another in God’s mercy and grace and we fall with one another in dis-grace. And thus Daniel says so rightly: “O Lord, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers [and mothers], for having sinned against you…[W]e [have] rebelled against you and paid no heed to your command, O Lord, our God, to live by the law you gave us through your servants the prophets.” And, so we pray in today’s responsorial psalm: “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins”   and help us to be merciful toward one another as you are merciful toward us,.