Who Needs Prayer?Written by Kenneth Dean Brown
According to old Baltimore Catechism, formally used to teach generations of Catholic children their faith, prayer is defined as "the lifting up of our minds and hearts to God to adore Him, to thank Him for His benefits, to ask His forgiveness, and to beg of Him all graces we need whether for soul or body." In short, it is our conscious and heartfelt communication with our God. Simple, right? Of course.Yet, past basic textbook explanation, what is prayer - really, and why does it matter? In other words, who really needs prayer? We do! One of greatest advantages of believing in a true living and personal God as opposed to some remote and aloof "cosmic entity" is prayer and that we can have a real and meaningful relationship with him. In fact, it's that personal relationship with our God that truly defines our faith. The New Catechism of Catholic Church, describes this relationship called prayer like this. PRAYER IS A GIFT All we have to do to realize great gift prayer really is is to look around honestly at immensity and perfection of God's creation. Modern astronomers and physicists remind us daily just how truly insignificant man is in universe, yet our God allows us and even begs us to communicate with him. How cool is that? Prayer is easily one of greatest gifts we could ever imagine. PRAYER IS A COVENANT According to New Catechism, "Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ." Our prayers are a key element in contract we as Christians personally enter into with God at our baptism. Throughout bible, God repeatedly teaches if we honor, trust and obey him, "he shall be our God and we shall be his people." In New Testament, our Lord tells us to pray unceasingly and to seek God constantly in all things. In other words, we as Christians are actually commanded to live our lives in an endless state of prayer as part of our contract with our God.
| | God Don't Like Rich PeopleWritten by Skye Thomas
I will never forget day that my daughter's sixth grade friend told me that. We had been discussing someone who had recently lost a fortune and had become very bitter as a result. She suddenly piped up with that all knowing scowl that only a twelve year old girl can truly master while proclaiming, "God don't like rich people!" She said it as if it was a mortal sin worthy of an eternity in hell. She immediately made a snap decision from that point forward to dislike person we'd been talking about. I've met her dad. He's a nice enough guy and from what I can tell, he agrees with his daughter. They are very regular attendees at their church. I don't know what church they go to, but all I could think to myself at time was, "Who in world is teaching her that!?" For my daughter's sake, I bit my tongue. I wanted so badly to quiz her friend and find out roots of that belief system. How does one logically come to that conclusion? I was under impression that God was known to shower you with riches if he liked you. Solomon was extremely rich and God liked him. I thought that God's opinion of us had more to do with our character, not our bank account. I could even see that how you amassed your fortune could be important in God's viewpoint. I think about Job and how he was tested to see if money was reason for his devotion to God. Upon passing test, didn't God dump piles of money back into his lap again? And what about father in prodigal son story? He had money and God liked him. Just as ridiculous to me are people who spin it other way around, as if God don't like poor people. They act like they're closer to God because they have money. Funny thing money, it can buy a lot of things, but I was under impression that God wasn't for sale. Rumor has it that some churches and individual clergy can be bought, but not God Himself. Nowhere in bible did I ever read that you could bypass rules and just pay an entrance fee to get into heaven's gates.
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