← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
07/27/25 Teach Us to Pray
00:14:27
Homily from the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The battle of prayer. Every one of us knows that we ought to pray. But not all of us know how. In addition, not all of us know that prayer can often be a challenge...it is a battle.
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So way back in the beginning of May, I think it was the first or second week in May, we had our baccalaureate Mass. Our students were graduating. And one of the things is just, like, I wanted to communicate this sense of, like, what do I want for them? Obviously, I want to be saints. I want them to be martyrs in the world. Whether that's white martyrs, where they just. They pour out their lives slowly over time, or even red martyrs, where they're willing to witness to Jesus Christ with their entire lives and shed blood for him. The goal is to be saints, though. But then it was like, well, how do you get there? And one thing was this. I just have this phrase, it keeps going back in my mind again and again is, this is I want them to be able to hunt and kill for themselves. And what that means is I want every one of our students, when they leave here to be here in such a way that they know how to. Like, they know how to live their own spiritual life. What I mean is, they take responsibility for their own spiritual life in such a way that regardless of whatever circumstance, whatever season, whatever place in their life they end up in, they know how to be fed spiritually, so they know how to hunt and kill for themselves. That sense of if they show up in a parish that is alive and is on fire and is, like, feeding them, well, that's great. That's awesome. But if they show up at a normal parish that might not be alive, might not be feeding them, but they know how to hunt and kill for themselves. And I know how important that is because that's part of my goal for myself as well. And I think that's even what's at heart in the Gospel today, where you have one of. Here's Jesus praying. One of his disciples comes up to him and sees him praying and says, I want to be able to do what you do. So, Lord, teach us to pray. Because we don't know how to pray. And most likely many of us have never been taught how to pray. In fact, I have a friend named Mike Gormley, and Mike will always say this. He says, as Catholics, we're typically not taught how to pray. We're taught how to repeat. And so I know how to say my prayers, but I don't necessarily know how to pray. And this is my experience. When I was in high school, I had a conversion to the Lord. I had an encounter with God's mercy, with his love, and with my sin first, and then with his mercy and love. And I remember having a couple thoughts, one thought was I need to go to confession. The other thought was, I need to pray. I realized I didn't know how. And I didn't even know how to. Like, I knew my mom prayed the rosary, and I had a rosary hanging on my bedstand, but. But I didn't know how to pray it. So I remember one Wednesday night at Religious Ed, there's a little booklet called Youth Praise the Rosary. And I asked Mrs. Haglin, I said, Mrs. Haglin, could I borrow this book? She's like, yeah, take it and read it. You can have it. It's yours. And I would take that book, and every night I would have, like, the booklet in one hand and the rosary in the other. And it's like, okay, here's how you pray a rosary, which was awesome. It was really helpful. I learned how to repeat. But how do you pray? And so what I would do is I'd read books about. I didn't want to ask anybody because that'd be too easy. And so I just. I read books about saints. And so I thought, okay, well, saints then spend time in front of Jesus in the Eucharist. So I bike over to the local Catholic church and just park myself in front of the tabernacle, saying, this is Jesus. He's truly present here. Like, I'd kneel there and be like, okay, Jesus, like, go. Just whatever you do to saints, like, go ahead and do that now. And I had this perception in my mind that was maybe inaccurate and maybe my expectation was off, because reading these stories of saints who would park themselves in front of Jesus in the Eucharist, it would describe it like this. They would say, yeah, you know, so. And so would. Would be in front of the tabernacle, be. Would be in front of the Eucharist, and. And hours would feel like mere minutes. And I. I got there and I made a commitment. I'd bike over every Saturday morning and I. I'd sit there in front of the. Or kneel there in front of the tabernacle. And I gotta tell you, minutes would feel like hours. It was. I thought. I thought I was doing. Am I doing it wrong? Because my assumption, my. My. My desire was, I wanna know how to pray. But how it was described to me always was, you just kind of like, settle into prayer, just, like, sink into prayer, just enter into prayer that I imagine it to be like a hot tub, right? Where it's just kind of like you just. You slip in and you just like, ah, there we are. We're praying now. And I don't know. I got to tell you this. It wasn't like that. It was not like a hot tub. One day, everything changed when I was reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church and I was reading the section on prayer and yet totally nerd. What high schooler would do that? But it was a section in the catechism on prayer called the Battle of Prayer, which was engaging to me. And so I remember reading, I want to know, what does the catechism say under the battle of prayer? And the first words under the title, the Battle of Prayer in the catechism says this. It says, prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. The next sentence says, it always presupposes effort. And reading that, it, like, set me free. Honestly, it was one of those. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so it's not supposed to be a hot tub. It's not supposed to be. Sometimes, yes, of course, we can settle into prayer. Sometimes we get to actually rest in prayer. That's 100% possible. But for the catechism to say no, prayer is both a gift of grace. Obviously, God is the one who initiates. God's the one who brings us into prayer. God is the one. He's the master of prayers. He's the one who helps us. And a determined response on our part. To know that it always presupposes effort was just. It was liberating. Because that's our experience. Our experience is, yes, some days there are great moments of prayer where we get to enter into and just, like, sink in. But mostly, prayer has to. It presupposes effort. It goes on to say, I love this. It says, the great figures of prayer in the old covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and Jesus himself, all teach us this prayer is a battle. And I love the next line. It says, not only is prayer a battle, but ask the question, well, against who? And the answer, the first person, the catechism says, is, well, against ourselves. That the first enemy when it comes to my own prayer life is me. The first enemy when it comes to my own prayer life is not someone else. It's not something else. It's the fact that I, when it's time to pray, I can think of a thousand other things to do when it's time to pray other than pray. So I realized that if I'm going to be someone myself who can hunt and kill for myself, then I have to be ready to enter into the battle of prayer. Now it goes on to say that you also. We also have to have to battle against the wiles of the tempter, who can do every. Who will do everything he can to turn us away from prayer. Because this is what Satan does not want, is Satan does not want us to have union with God. And so we recognize, too, not only am I battling with myself, I have to battle against the enemy who does not want me to know Jesus. He does not want me to spend time with the Father. He does not want any of us to become the saints that God has made us to be. This is one of the reasons why we can get discouraged. In fact, the catechism talks about this. When it comes to the battle of prayer. It says, why are we so easily discouraged? In fact, one of the discouragements we experience is not just dryness and prayer distraction, although the catechism talks about that. But also, sometimes it feels like we're not being heard. And this is one of those moments in the catechism that's just like, wow, are you reading my brain? Because the catechism even asked the question. It's to ask the question, why do we complain about not being heard? I imagine we all experience this when it comes to this. I desire prayer. I know that I need to be able to hunt and kill for myself. I know that I need to be here, but it feels like I'm not being heard. So the question, why do we complain about not being heard? And the response is amazing. It says this. It says, in the first place, we ought to be astonished by this fact when we praise God or give him thanks for his benefits. In general, we're not particularly concerned about whether or not our prayer is acceptable to him. I don't know if you've experienced this ever in your life. Like, okay, God, I'm gonna give you thanks. And so it's like, hey, you know, peace out, God. Like, just, hey, thanks a lot. And we move on with our day. But, like, if I really, really need something, I'm like, okay, no, we are going to the church. Like, we're. We're not just gonna be in church. We're gonna kneel down. I'm gonna, like, have my hands in the right position, and I'm gonna. Because I really want this thing. But when it comes to thanks, like, oh, yeah, by the way, God, thanks. And we're not particularly concerned about whether or not our prayer of thanks is acceptable to him. But we. He goes on to say, but we demand to see the result of our prayers of petitions. And how many times is that our own Heart that. Okay, God, yeah. Thanks. By the way, how many times have we ever said, in the name of Jesus, Father, please receive my thanks? How many times have we ever, ever stopped for a moment and said, I'm going to approach the Father to give him thanks in the same way that I approach him when I have a prayer petition with that same seriousness, with that same solemnity, with that same again, in the name of Jesus, Father, please receive my words of praise, receive my thanks. But when I'm praying petitions, I demand to see the results of my prayer and then ask the question, what is the image of God that motivates our prayer? Is God simply an instrument to be used, or is he the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? In the gospel today, Jesus reveals that he is the Father. Not only does he reveal that he is the Father, he reveals that he is a good dad, a good dad who hears our prayers, who wants us to approach him. He wants us to ask. He doesn't need us necessarily to beg. He just wants us to ask. Of course, as a good dad, sometimes his answer is no. Sometimes his answer is wait. But we're called as God's children to keep coming back to him. I wonder the question, like, why would God ask us to wait? I think there's at least three reasons. One is because when God makes us wait, when he invites us to wait, he's purifying our desires. You know, we can come before the Lord and say, well, God, I need this thing. And the answer is like, do I really? No, God, I can't live without this thing. Okay, Do I really need that? I remember years ago, my little brother was trying to get into medical school, and he didn't get in on the first try. And so in that year, as he didn't get in, he was working in the hospital, and he's working alongside nurses. And he realized that he really liked what nurses did. He really liked the work of nurses, he really admired a lot of nurses. And he had to ask the question, okay, wait, do I just want the title of doctor, or do I want to actually serve as a doctor? Because this work alongside nurses is very, very meaningful. It's very, very powerful. It's very, very helpful for people who are sick or injured. He had to ask the question, do I just want the title, or do I specifically actually desire the work? And that not him having to wait purified his desire. So when he did decide, okay, I do want to go to medical school because I do want to help people as a physician, that desire had been purified. So, number one, God says wait sometimes to purify our desires. Number two is God humbles us. Sometimes weight makes me be humble because I realized, okay, God, you actually do no more than I do, okay, God, you actually are in control. And whereas for so many times, for so many people, waiting can cause us anxiety, to have to wait well, means I have to become humble. Because we know this truth. We know. The truth is that as we heard Timothy Keller say, that anxiety comes from pride. It takes pride to be anxious and it takes humility to be patient. God wants us to grow in humility, maybe more than anything. And lastly, we get a spiritual strength when we wait, that when we persevere, God doesn't make us ask again and again because he doesn't want to give us good things. But he might make us invite us to ask again and again because he wants us to be able to persevere. He wants us to be able to keep going. He wants us to be able to learn how to hunt and kill for ourselves, even when it's not easy. So, last thing, how do we pray? Okay. Knowing that it's a battle, knowing that there are challenges to prayer, knowing that it always presupposes effort. How do we pray? I would say four steps. Super simple. Number one, listen to God. Whether that's picking up your Bible and just, like taking a little bite out of his word or, I don't know, there's a podcast with the Bible in it. It's really interesting. I recommend it. But just listen to the Lord. Let him speak to you. Number two is reflect on what he said. Just pick up the Bible or even the daily mass readings. Listen to God. Number two, reflect on what he said. What do you think? Number three is notice your heart. Like, what's actually going on in your life? What's actually going on in your heart? Sometimes we enter into prayer and we think that, okay, God, whatever you want to talk about, it's just going to be holy things. Well, yeah, but in your heart might not be some holy things. Maybe you need to actually notice your heart. Bring that to prayer. So, number one, listen to God. Number two, reflect on what he said. Number three, notice your heart. And number four, talk to him. That's it. Super simple. It's not step by step. It's not a formula. It's just these are important things to be able to do, to listen to God, to notice. Reflect on what he said, to notice your heart and talk to him. If you and I can do that on a regular basis, there is no season. There is no circumstance, there's no situation that any of us ever have to be afraid of. Because if we can do that, if we can listen to God, if we can reflect on what he said, if we can notice our own hearts, and if we can talk to him, then we will be able to hunt and kill for ourselves. If we can do that, we will be able to let him make us saints.