St. Maria Goretti

Our Gospel today says that we are to be “vigilant at all times. The old translation used to say, “pray always.” It is really hard for us to imagine doing anything “at ALL times” or always. We do so many different things every day, that when somebody asks us to do something always, we get a little worried. What would it be like to do something, anything, ALWAYS? I mean, even things that we really, really like, we wouldn’t want to do for always. We may like golf, or basketball, or cards, or traveling, or video games. But would we really want to do any of those things “at all times.” I guess the one thing that we have all done, always, ever since we were born, is breathe. We like to breathe. Ask anybody who’s ever choked on anything, and they will tell you how nice it is to be able to breathe. Sometimes, it seems like we’re always eating, especially when you’re Italian, but we know that nobody is always eating. When we’re really, really tired, we might say that we’d just like to sleep forever. But in reality, nobody wants to sleep forever either, no matter how tired you get. So that leaves us pretty much, with just breathing, as our always activity. Everything else just comes and goes.

Today, on our First Sunday of Advent, Jesus asks us to make our prayer, like our breathing. We are to be praying constantly. It is how we are to stay vigilant in this crazy world that we live in, a world that has more and more signs every day of the coming of the Son of Man, that our Gospel talks about. So how do we do this? Most of us, find it hard to find an hour to pray every day. How are we ever going to learn to pray constantly?

First of all, we need to develop an attitude of prayer. We must acknowledge the fact that we are always in God’s presence and sight. In short, we are not alone. God sees us. God knows us. God is with us always. Not just when we want to acknowledge Him, but always. He sees every breath that we take! That awareness is the first start to developing an attitude of prayer. Advent, that we begin today, is the perfect time to start to acknowledge this. Wouldn’t it be great, if this Advent, even though it is almost a whole week shorter than it usually is, if we really made prayer a more consistent part of our lives? How would it make you feel if you were with someone all day long, and the only time that they acknowledged you was before they ate, or when they took a test at school, or when they bought a lottery ticket. God does not want to be a part-time God. He won’t stand for it. That’s why He calls us to pray constantly.

Next, we have to set aside some time every day to pray. The more time we set aside to pray, the more we will recognize that God is with us always and that our whole lives - our thoughts, our words, our actions, our work, even our recreation, should involve God. But we’ve got to pray to see that. We’ve got to pray in the morning. We’ve got to pray at night. We’ve got to pray at home, at work, at school, in the car, and everywhere in between. That’s how we begin to pray “at all times.”

And then eventually, we want our prayer to become like our breathing. So that at every moment, at every breath, we acknowledge that God is with us. We don’t have to be talking to Him at every moment. He’s got enough people talking at Him all the time. But we should let Him be with us at all times. God doesn’t want to just be with us when we’re in church. How boring would that be? God wants to be with wherever you go, whatever you do, at all times, with every breath.

As we begin this new year this weekend, as we start our preparations of the season of Advent, let’s really work this time on our prayer. Prayer changes us. And it gets us ready for everything in the future, including that day when we stop breathing.

May God bless us all, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… AMEN !!!

St. Maria Goretti… Pray for us !!!