I had to give my wife’s confirmation class a reminder this week. It’s a reminder I need to give myself often, too.
Some in her class weren’t taking their prayer challenge seriously — especially those who are in highly religious families. I totally understand their reasoning. They frequent the sacraments. They do lots of Catholic things. They have plenty of contact with God. Why do they need one more spiritual thing?
What I argued was that, alongside the sacraments and the works of mercy, talking one-on-one to Jesus is the most important “Catholic thing” — or thing of any kind — that they have to do.
The six reasons I gave them go for you and me, too.
1: Jesus says personal prayer, not group prayer, is what he wants the most.
When Jesus taught his disciples about prayer, he was emphatic about personal prayer. He says:
“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)
2: Knowing Jesus will matter more than anything else in the end.
In the end, Jesus will embrace not those who are pious, like the Pharisees, but those he knows personally — his friends.
In Matthew 7:21-23, he says: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
People who considered themselves pious will be surprised, he says, when “I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you.”
3: God is truly in love with you, longing to hear from you.
Sometimes we think we are somehow tainted and unattractive in God’s eyes. That isn’t true. The great Thomist Father Herb McCabe, who I knew in Oxford, said:
“Never be deluded into thinking that if you have contrition for your sins, God … will be touched by your appeal, change his mind about you and forgive you. Not a bit of it. God never changes his mind about you. He is simply in love with you. What he does again and again is change your mind about him.”
His love for you will become obvious when you speak with him.
4: Don’t be afraid that friendship with Jesus will make your life worse.
Sometimes we avoid Jesus because we think he will be pushy and demanding and change us into someone awkward and strange, someone we won’t like. I love how Pope Benedict XVI put it.
“If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that he might take something away from us? … No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.”
5: In fact, Jesus will give us exactly the things we most want.
Benedict XVI on a different occasion listed what friendship with Jesus give you.
“A relationship of deep trust, of authentic friendship with Jesus, can give a young person what he or she needs to face life: serenity and interior enlightenment, an aptitude for thinking positively, broadmindedness with regard to others, the readiness to pay in person for goodness, justice and truth.”
6: He is asking you to come to him today.
But let’s let Jesus have the last word. Only being “yoked” to him — side-by-side with him in friendship — makes life sweet.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
So, spend time with Jesus, one-on-one, in prayer today — and every day. Here is how.
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Take a few minutes to read one or a few of the brief but powerful reflections in our "Prayer is" series here.
