"In Prayer, Be Honest and Be You" - 30th Sunday Homily

It's been a tough stretch the past month in our parish with addiction.

uh hospitalization and two funerals for our young people.

The good news is we started our parents support group, led by professionals now.

There's information in your bulletin.

And there was a good result with an intervention within the parish family.

I had been praying for this, I been working with the family for a long time.

Knowing about the intervention, I prayed the days and weeks before it, or the days before it.

Wasn't overly confident it would go well.

But one of the family members did more than that.

She came many times to the Adoration Chapel the days leading up to the intervention.

hour after hour pleading to the Lord for a good outcome.

And it was a beautiful result.

Those can go either way.

And it went well.

In my opinion, miraculous.

And when I came to learn about all the hours that family member put in the chapel, there's probably a hundred stories like this since March, of living out the response to our psalm

from Psalm 34, the Lord hears the cry of the poor.

just the other day, just yesterday, talking to one of our young adults who went there late Friday night because of his family stuff.

And others, again, there's probably a hundred stories, and at that moment, poor has nothing to with money or wealth.

It's crying out, like St.

Paul says, pouring out yourself like libation.

Begging the Lord, pleading the Lord, crying out to Him.

All the descriptions of people in really tough situations from the first reading.

The weak, the oppressed, the poor.

The lowly

And we have then the comparison of the gospel, two examples of prayer.

The opposite example of everything I just described is the Pharisee who is proud.

Self-righteous.

He prays to himself.

It's weird.

He calls out to God, but he's praying to himself.

And then the tax collector is a model of humility.

What starts all this discussion on prayer from the first line, the Lord is a God of justice.

Which means He gives people what they are due, what they're owed.

So in the realm of prayer, think it means that if we offer up lame prayers, we're going to get lame responses.

So the category of the Pharisee, this is lame prayer.

What scares me, this is my prayer coming to mass the first 20 years of my life.

Saying the prayers out loud for people to hear, but not thinking about what I was saying for a second.

And then even worse, coming up for communion, praying amen to the body of Christ, receiving, and then just checking out people in the church.

Come back to my pew and close my eyes, thinking about football or something.

We're going through the motions.

Rote prayers only.

Which are important.

It's great to pray together outwardly, but it should be inward.

So the risk that we run of having these proud, self-righteous, just to be heard prayers, I'm looking at the evidence from these readings and scripture in general, I don't think

they're heard.

There's no evidence that they're heard.

But the other category, the tax collector category, the humble category, the family member in the Adoration Chapel category.

The prayer of the Lord lowly pierces the clouds, goes to God, doesn't rest until it reaches its goal, and the Most High responds, judges justly, and affirms the right.

And the Lord will not delay.

As the member found within days or hours of her prayer, the intervention went well.

It's nice when it happens without delay.

So the takeaway for us with prayer is to be honest, from the heart, humble, authentic.

The tax collector is not going to be winning awards for his high theology or spirituality.

This is not next level language.

It's simple.

God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

But it's exalted because it's from his heart.

It's honest.

God can deal with honesty.

He wants honesty as any of us would.

Parents, know, you can deal with any of your kids, just be honest.

God's the same way.

The honesty is that this tax collector is a sinner.

He acknowledges what's true and he's humble about it.

God's like, now we got something.

be merciful to me a sinner.

reaches out and implores the mercy of God.

When we're honest and humble, God shows mercy.

He hears our prayer.

He responds, affirms the right, and sometimes without delay.

So my advice, my simple advice with regards to prayer,

To be honest.

and to be you.

God doesn't want you to pray like someone else or be like someone else in prayer.

He wants you from your heart, from your DNA, from your personality.

He wants the conversation with you.

Be honest and be you in prayer.