I'm gonna try this again. It's a little darker in here but I'm gonna get after it as quick as I can. OK.
Hi my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents
So you know there are certain things in life that are optional, right?
Like they're not required, they're not necessary, they're not mandatory
They're just like, yeah if you want to do it go ahead and do it. If you don't want to do it, don't worry about it.
There are some things that are completely not optional,
things like air and water and food and sleep and ... like ... these good things in life that we absolutely need
that I can't just say, "Na, I'm fine, I don't need that" and then expect to have life.
Prayer is one of those things in the life of the Christian
and the life of the one who follows after Jesus.
A lot of us treat prayer like it's optional,
like yeah, it's something I'll get to when I have more time.
It's something that I'll get to if I can work it in.
It's something that I'll get to when I retire and I don't have anything else going on.
And then we look at ourselves and wonder, "Wait, why don't I have more life?
"Why don't have more joy in my life? Why am I not happier? Why aren't I closer to God?"
Because I've been treating prayer as if it's optional when it's absolutely essential.
So if we understand that then we can understand this next thing and
the next thing is if you decide that you're gonna actually engage
and no longer treat prayer as optional but as absolutely essential you have to get ready for battle.
In fact, my favorite section of the Catechism on prayer is called the "Battle of Prayer"
and it says these words, it says, "Prayer is a gift of grace that requires a determined response on our part."
Prayer is always a gift of grace, right? It's God who always initiates prayer.
We never like think like, "Hey God, can I get your attention?"
It is always God trying to get our attention. So prayer is always a gift of grace.
God is always the one who acts first, but it also presupposes a determined response on our part.
We have to respond to that. And the next line is "It always presupposes effort."
The prayer always presupposes effort.
In fact, when I was a kid, when I came to Jesus, I had a conversion to Christ about 15, 16 years old
and I had these books, my parents had these books in the house that we're about saints
and these saints, it said, they would go into prayer in front of the Eucharist
and hours would feel like mere minutes and so
I was like, "OK, that's what I'm gonna do," so I'd ride my bike over to the Catholic Church
and I'd go in front of the tabernacle and pray in the presence of Our Lord
and it was the opposite—mere minutes would feel like hours
and I'm like, "What's going on? This is so hard."
That's where the Church says, yeah, that the Scripture, and the lives of the saints, and even the life of Jesus himself revealed to us that prayer is a battle.
But then the question comes up in the Catechism: well, a battle against who?
and the Catechism gives two immediate answers:
It says against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who will do everything he can to prevent us from having union with God.
Because isn't that true? God invites you to pray, God invites me to pray
and I can think of a thousand things I need to do that are "more important" than praying.
I can think of a dozen other things that I could be doing right now that maybe I'll just pray later
and we don't do it.
Prayer is first of all a battle against ourselves, and even when we get to prayer
I will have this battle of like, "Well, I want to be heard how I want to be heard."
I want to get what I want in response from the Lord.
Prayer is always a battle against ourselves and it's a battle against Satan.
Think about this:
Satan hates God and he hates everything that God loves. YOU are someone who God loves,
and the more you pray, the closer you get to the One who loves you.
Satan doesn't want that to happen and so even when we're in prayer ...
Say you made it past that battle of getting to prayer, there's another battle.
And the one I'm talking about right now in the second half of this video is distraction,
because every single of us has experienced distraction in prayer.
That's why I always invite people when you go into prayer have something you can focus on,
whether that's like an image, say it's a crucifix, or it's an icon, or it's the words of Scripture,
or to words of some writings of some saint or writings of the Church.
So it's either something beautiful or something true that can speak to you and hold your attention.
And you let that inform your brain and from your heart, then you talk to God about it.
But of course, what's gonna happen is you're gonna get distracted.
So here we are: You're talking to God, talking to God, and then pretty soon all of a sudden, you're way over here.
Now what most people do when they find themselves distracted,
is they react like a new driver on a slippery road, right?
A new driver on a slippery road is way over here and starts over-correcting and so they correct because they panic
and they get to the center but then they keep going.
one of the saints I think it was Therese of Lisieux or Teresa of Avila, one of two said,
If you ever find yourself distracted, just calmly recognize, "Oh, I'm distracted," and then gently bring your attention back to the Lord.
That's why it's good to have that focal point, right?
It's good to have that that image or those words to bring your mind to beauty and to truth and up to the Lord.
And it could be the case that you get distracted again and again.
I think it was Therese of Lisieux who said that she'd be in a prayer time and she'd be distracted up to a thousand times
and every time she just calmly recognized she was distracted
and then gently bring her attention back to the Lord.
Now here's the last thing:
if you find yourself being distracted by the same thing,
so you're trying to read John chapter 11 about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead
but your mind keeps going back, your heart keeps going back to this scuffle you had with someone at work.
You just have this anger in your heart and it keeps going back to that,
well, the next thing to do is, just saying,
"OK, realizing, I keep going being drawn back to this Lord so I'm going to attend to this."
Now I'm going to take this anger that I have and I'm gonna bring it to you.
That's gonna be the content of my prayer now.
Maybe you have this great sorrow that keeps distracting you, your mind or heart keeps going back to this
like, "OK, now I'm gonna attend to this sorrow and now, this is gonna be, Lord, I'm gonna talk to you about this."
because it could be that you want to pray about one thing
but the Lord is actually nudging you to pray about that anger.
Let's pray about that sorrow, to pray about that joy.
So, if it keeps going back to that one thing just attend to it, start talking to the Lord about that
because what the Lord wants more than anything is, not to talk, not just to talk about scripture,
not just talk about the image, not just talk about him
but he also wants you to reveal to him what is in your heart
even if those things are sorrow or anger or lust or whatever you find there.
Prayer is a battle but with God's help, it is a battle that he's inviting you into.
It's his grace and again, with his help, it's a battle that He will win in you.
It's not optional, it's essential—this battle.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name is Father Mike
God bless