Dear Parish Family,
After Jesus’ Ascension his disciples returned
to the upper room where they had
celebrated the Last Supper and gathered in
prayer with Mary, the women, the apostles
and many disciples. Jesus had said to them to stay in the city until
they were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). Jesus had
promised that he would send them a Comforter or Advocate, the Holy
Spirit. So they spent these days on retreat praying for the Holy
Spirit. Although Jesus would no longer be with them as he had been,
as someone they could see and touch, yet he would continue to be
with them as they celebrated the Eucharist and would be with them
through his Spirit whom they would receive at Pentecost after this
time of prayer together.
Remembering Mary, the women, apostles and disciples gathered in
prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit reminds us of the importance
of praying for what we need. While prayer is principally to
make us more open to God, to help us respond better to God’s grace
in our lives, we also believe that God’s love leads Him to hear and
answer our prayers. We greatly admire the faith of people who pray
to God every day for a request and a long time afterwards have their
prayer answered. Each one of us knows people whose prayers seem
to be always answered, and then they are asked to pray for others
also. People often ask priests and sisters to pray for their intentions
and ask priests to offer Mass for their intentions; that is good, but it
is also good that each of us prays for ourselves. Jesus himself taught
the importance of asking God for what we need, “Ask and it will be
given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be
opened to you”. (Luke 11:9-10).
Sometimes we might feel that prayer is wasting time instead of doing
something good. We need both work and prayer in our lives. If we
do not pray every day there will be a huge void in our lives and we
cannot hope to be happy.
Not all prayers are answered, or I should say, not answered in the
way we wanted. Even though not all prayers are answered in the way
we desired, hopefully we can see that we have received graces we
probably would not have received had those prayers been answered
as we wished. We have plans and sometimes our plans are not fulfilled.
Our lives can sometimes revolve around ‘me’ or ‘I’ or
‘myself. But God has still more wonderful plans for us if we will
allow them to be fulfilled. It is only in the next life that we will fully
understand God’s plans. The disciples understood the establishment
of the ‘kingdom’ as the reign of God by defeat of sin only when the
Holy Spirit came upon them. Like them when we wait in prayer like
Mary, the women and apostles and disciples before Pentecost we
will receive graces from prayer that otherwise we would not receive.
During this week before Pentecost I invite you to pray like Mary, the
women, the apostles and disciples for a renewed outpouring of the
Holy Spirit on the Church and on all of us that we may respond to
God better. Please believe that your prayer will be answered. As we
plan our summer vacation give some thought of going on a spiritual
retreat to revitalize our soul.
Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.