On prayer and on suffering

Gospel Mark 9, 17–31

17 April 1983

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Today's reading of the Gospel is so rich, and I would like to attract your attention only to a few words in it.

A man was in need, in desperate need; his heart was in agony for the sake of his child, and the apostles could do nothing to help. And when the child and the father were brought to Christ, or rather, when He came down into the multitude of people, He said: Bring him to Me...

This is a commandment which He gives to all of us, Christian people. It is to H i m that we must bring everyone who is in need, in any need, whether he is a Christian or not, whether we understand him and his need or not, – it is to Christ that ultimately we must bring this person. We can bring him to Christ in a number of ways; and the first is to reveal to him, in us, however dimly, Christ's compassion and Christ's love. We m u s t allow the light which is God within us, to shine. We must be God's own compassion and tenderness, and infinite understanding and insight. And this is why Christ says to His disciples, ‘The evil, which you could not overcome, can be cast out only through prayer and through fasting’.

Through prayer, because prayer is not merely the reading, or the saying by heart of those prayers which came like blood, like the life-blood of saints in agony or in exaltation, from the depths of their faith, from all the depth of their hope, from the greatness of their love; prayer is something else. It is our longing for God expressed in our cry, ‘Come! C o m e, Lord Jesus, and come soon!’... It is our brokenheartedness at the coldness of our heart, at the dispersion of our mind, at the waverings of our will... Distress that will find expression by saying, ‘Forgive, o, Lord, forgive! Do not turn away from me, as I turn away from Thee! Do not turn away from me as I turn away from my neighbour!’.. Prayer is also the cry of our gratitude for all He is, and all He has done and is doing for us. It is also our adoration of God, our worship in awe and love. And it leads us to knowing God with the intimacy of one with whom we share all our thoughts, and whom God Himself inspires, with whom H e shares our thoughts to the point that one day Paul could say that he had the mind of Christ. His thoughts were the thoughts of God in Christ.

And also through fasting, which is not mere abstinence from the food which is offered us, which is an attitude of mind which rejects everything that leads to corruption, everything that is loaded with evil and leads to death: evil thoughts, resentment, bitterness, hatred, greed, fear: all the things that are not о f G o d. It is abstaining from everything about which we cannot say: For me, life is Christ Himself. If by this kind of fasting and abstinence, by this kind of prayer we become more and more one with Christ, then indeed, the light of Christ may shine through us; and indeed, if we say to a person in need, ‘Come to Him Who has made my life into life, Who has made all things new for me – come! I will lead you to the One Who can heal, and save, and renew, and rejoice’ – then we will be heard. But ultimately, whatever we do, it is to Christ that we must bring him or her who is in need.

Often we will be told, But I have no faith! How can I come?... We must then remember Christ's own, words, ‘If thou canst believe, h о w e v e r little – everything will be made possible...’ H o w e v e r little... And a little faith may be called at times a mad hope that the impossible will happen: this is already faith. And the father said to Christ, ‘I believe, Lord, help my unbelief!’..

He could not believe with his whole mind and heart, with all his life; but he could at least h о p e, because he adds, ‘Be merciful unto us!..’ He believed in mercy which he saw in the eyes, he believed in compassion which he read in the face of Christ, and that was enough to be a beginning of that faith that made the miracle possible.

Let us ponder on these things, because we are now in a society, in a world which has lost, or never known, or rejected God and Christ; w e are the people who are to be the witnesses of God, and who are to be those who make the rough road smooth, and the crooked ways straight for people to come to salvation, to life, to newness.

Let us learn from the saints who begun as low as we do begin, as sinful as we are, as weak and frail as we are, with the faith as hesitant as ours – let us learn from them that by the grace of God one can grow into that measure that will allow us to bring people to life. Amen.