How I Pray
Anna Cowell

Saints of the New Millennium
I often ask groups of young people, “Who wants to go to heaven?” More often that not, everyone raises their hands. I then ask, “Who wants to be a saint?” and I raise my hand in the air (you have to admit, St. Anna Bernadette does have a good ring to it!). If I’m lucky someone joins me in raising their hand! On the occasion of the 15th World Youth Day, Pope John Paul II invited young people not to be afraid to be “saints of the new millennium!” The call to holiness and the invitation to a have a relationship with the Lord is not just for the saints already in heaven, it is the basic Christian call for each of us.

How Can We Be Holy?
The more I read about the lives the saints, the more I realise that the saints were ordinary people who said “Yes” to God, and He then made their lives extraordinary. In my prayer, my aim is to say “Yes” to God and to His will in my life. Theoretically this sounds like a simple task. However, the Lord who knows my heart knows the truth and the truth of the matter is that, for me, prayer is a struggle.

Thirsty?
The cry of the psalmist echoes through my prayer, “God, you are my God, for you I long, for you my soul is thirsting”. I desire to know God. The struggle I have is not concerning the existence of God, for I have seen enough of the fruits of prayer to know that my Father in heaven loves me, listens to me and provides for me. The catchphrase of Sr. Nancy Keller SC summarises my difficulties with prayer perfectly. Sr. Nancy is famed for saying, “There’s ALWAYS more!” My problem then, unfortunately, begins with eternity!

There’s always more of God to know, to experience and to love. It seems an impossible task. I take great comfort in the words of St. John of the Cross, “…if a person is seeking God, much more is her beloved seeking her.”

The knowledge that the Lord is thirsting for me more than I thirst for Him only increases my desire for Him and encourages me more in my search for Him, but then I realise there’s ALWAYS more and the search begins again!
 
Quenching the Thirst

So how do I go about seeking God and loving Him?

In order to fall deeper in love with someone, we need to spend time with that person, getting to know them. Prayer is the time that I spend with the Lord finding out more about Him in order to fall more in love with Him. I have found that praising God in song often leads me to a quiet place of worship; a place where God reveals Himself in the stillness.

The Bible is often referred to as ‘The Father’s Love Letter to His Children’. The easiest way I can find out about the One who loves me is by reading His love letter to me. Like any love letter we receive, we don’t just read it once. We read it again and again and each time we notice different things, old phrases take on new meaning. We believe that the word of God is alive and active. This love letter is not simply a legacy of nice stories that the Lord has left us to make us feel good, it’s an invitation into a real, loving relationship.

Once I have read or heard His words of love I need to respond. Considering that the greatest lover the world could ever know is inviting me to love Him my response is often feeble!

The reality of my relationship with Jesus is that I am a sinner who is falling in love with the perfect, sinless Son of God. I mess up all too often and find spend my time making excuses.  “Lord, I’m too busy, too tired, too hungry, too grumpy, too sinful, too lazy to spend time with you now!” Whatever the excuse may be, it’s never good enough. Jesus doesn’t want me to come before Him with a perfectly rehearsed prayer. He just wants me to come, in my tiredness, laziness, and grumpiness. He wants me to be real with Him. I don’t even have to say anything.

The most amazing thing about the Lord is that He is still seeking me when I get things wrong. He waits patiently for me to run back into the safety of His arms. I can only begin to grasp what it means to be loved unconditionally.

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