If there was any man who walked here on earth who did not need to pray, it was Jesus. Jesus did not have to pray because He is God and man. Jesus did not need to pray because He was always in communion with God and He is God Himself.
Yet, the Gospel for today opened with a very striking paradox that Jesus, the God-man, who did not have to pray, was said to have gone to the mountain and prayed, spending the night in communion with God.
Jesus who did not have to pray, prayed. And yet the opposite is true with us. We all need to pray but we do not pray. When we get too busy, the first activity we drop from our schedule is attending the Mass. When we have a headache, the first item we erase from our regular duties is our rosary or bible reading. When we have problem at home or in the office, the first thing we say is, “I will just pray tomorrow.”
How different is our attitude from that of the Lord. The Lord who never needed to pray, who never had to pray, prayed. While we who still need to pray find a lot of excuses and reasons not to pray. Sometimes we even convince ourselves that we do not have to pray for we might “overshoot” heaven. How can that happen? Can we really love excessively that we pray excessively? I don’t think this is ever possible. We can never be excessive in our prayer. In the same way that we can never be excessive in our love.
We all need to pray. During this Mass, we will ask God to rekindle in our hearts that zeal for prayer. In spite of the many excuses, in spite of the many reasons we have in our mind on why we need not pray, let us beg the Lord to overcome all these. For the zeal, for the generosity to pray, let us ask the Lord to rekindle our hearts.
JESUS PRAYED
Lk. 6:12-19
Only Jesus, Always Jesus
