I remember Fr. Groeschel once described petitionary prayer as ‘how do I get God to do what I want’. So, I’m going to do a little catechesis on prayer of petition, and I have 3 points. 

First, God wants us to pray for ourselves. Some people never pray for themselves because they think it’s selfish. Granted we need a good balance, but God does want us to pray for ourselves because it reinforces our dependence on Him. In the middle of the Our Father we pray, give us this day our daily bread, our sustenance, what we need for life which means not only physical bread but also spiritual, the Word of God, the Eucharist. All of that is included in this 1 petition. As St. Augustine said, “God wills that our desire should be exercised in prayer, that we may be able to receive what he is prepared to give us.” There are good things God wants to give us and He wants us to ask for them.

One example from our life was when Joni and I went to Rome in 1998 w/ Fr. Stack. It started when Joni heard him mention the trip and she heard a little voice in her head say, ‘that’s the trip’, and she shared that with me and I said, well, okay, but we can’t afford it. But I told her I’d pray. So, what often works for me is to open the Bible and randomly look and more often than not, God gives me an answer. So, I went to the chapel at Ascension, said okay Lord, speak, and opened the Bible and I saw the words “to Rome”. And I thought well that could be a fluke, so I did it again, and I saw the words “at Rome”. Okay. It wasn’t a fluke, so we signed up, but money was still an issue. About 4 days before we had to come up with $2,200 Joni is freaking out. She’s been praying and we still don’t have the money. She called her friend Jeanne Danko who asked when we needed the money. Joni said 4 days, and she said okay, plenty of time, just keep praying. Sometime during that 4 days our tax guy called us and said we had a refund of $2,500. Joni’s first thought was, how great, He covered the trip and gave us $300 spending money. The point here is that there are times when God wants to give us good things, but He wants us to ask and to trust. 

Second point is that God always gives us what is truly good for us. At the end of the gospel Jesus says, ‘what father would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish, or scorpion when he asks for an egg’. I’ve always been puzzled about this gospel, because whenever I hear it, I think, what in the world would possess a father to even consider handing his son a snake when he asks for a fish. Then, I heard an interpretation from Fr. Apostoli which was corroborated by a footnote I saw in my NAB in Matthew’s version of this text. Matthew’s version is essentially the same, but it says stone and bread instead of scorpion and egg. The interpretation is this – to a child, a stone can look like a Middle Eastern loaf of bread, and a snake can look like a fish called a barbut, so imagine a child pointing to a stone or a snake and asking to have it. The father knows that the child really wants bread or a fish and so he gives the child what he really wants, not what he mistakenly thinks he wants. Then Jesus says, if you understand this and give your child what is good, how much more will my heavenly Father give you what is truly good. 

Third point is that we are to be persistent in prayer. I want to explain this by way of contrast. On the one hand, He wants us to persevere – keep asking if we don’t get an answer right away. On the other hand, he condemns the babbling of the pagans who think they will be heard by their many words. What’s the difference? The key is relationship. The pagan has no relationship with his God. His prayer is more like a magic formula – say these words so many times and poof, his “god” answers his prayers. Christian prayer is all about relationship. 

Think of your father, or someone who is like a father to you, and imagine you want something from him. How would you ask him? What would you say? Now suppose he seems reluctant to give you what you requested. Would you give up, or keep asking? How would you persist? Joni says sometimes she just says please, please, please … What would you do? Whatever you would do with the father in your life, do that with God. He wants us to be totally natural and come to him as our father. 

There is a further element to persistence. The commentaries says that the word that is translated as persistence is closer to shamelessness. The NIV translates it as shameless audacity. We see examples of this all over the Bible. In our first reading, Abraham negotiated with God with shameless audacity. Think of the 2 blind men on the side of the road where Jesus was passing by who were asking Jesus for mercy and the crowd is trying to hush them up and they respond by crying out all the louder. Think of the woman who worked her way through a crowd to get close to Jesus because she was convinced if she just touched His garment she would be healed. Think of the paralytic whose friends lowered him through the roof right in front of Jesus while he was preaching. Over and over, we see stories of shameless audacity, holy boldness, and Jesus loves it. 

Here’s a story about Joni who has much more shameless audacity than me. My daughter Kaitlyn and her husband Chris needed to sell their house. They were in a little condo in Crofton with 2 children and #3 on the way, they had a contract on a bigger house in Bowie (actually Joni’s childhood home but that’s another story) and they needed to sell their house, and nothing was happening. So, Joni started praying boldly. She basically went to God with total confidence and said, okay, you gotta make this happen. She got up one morning and she prayed the novena to the Infant of Prague. After praying she was convinced the house would sell. She called Kaitlyn and said you’re going to get a contract today. Kaitlyn said well that would be a total miracle because we don’t even have someone looking. An hour later Kaitlyn called and asked to bring the kids over at noon because someone was going to look at the house. Joni just laughed. Kaitlyn and Chris got the contract the following morning so you could say that Joni was a little off. But what’s going on here? Is Joni a saint that gets whatever she prays for? No, although I think she’s on her way; but she’s a very trusting daughter. She has a very deep relationship with Him from years of suffering and prayer and in this case, she had the sense that God would provide. On another occasion, our son Logan who is a percussionist and trying to win an audition at a symphony had an audition here with the Marine Corp band and we were all excited, so we turned to Joni to do her thing. She prayed hard as we all did, but she never got the same sense with God on this one. He made it to the final round but didn’t win. So, in the end it’s up to God. We do our part by asking, and if the answer is No, we trust.  

So, 1) God wants us to ask, 2) He will only give us what is good, and 3) He wants us to pray with persistence. All of this forms a relationship. That’s really what it’s about. We pray with persistence, not because God needs to be told what we need, but so that we may realize our total dependence on Him for everything. In the Our Father, we pray for our daily bread which means every day we ask for our needs. I worked with a guy who struggled because he was a little slow. Every day he began work on his knees. Prayer is the one thing God told us to do always. He didn’t tell us to do good works or to fast constantly, but we are to pray without ceasing. St. Therese says praying is to the soul as breathing is to the body. 

So, brothers and sisters, let us pray. Let us pray because we need it. Let us pray because it pleases Him. Let us pray with shameless audacity because He loves that. Let us pray with child-like confidence because He is our Father who wants to give us good things.