Does God Answer Our Prayers? - 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week’s homily addresses the power of prayer. Is God telling us the truth in promising to give us what we ask for? Or did he mean something else or more for us? There are many cases in which are prayers are not answered…we see in war and worldly issues. Yet there are instances too in which sick people are healed after being told they have a certain amount of time to live from diseases. Fr. John Ehrich takes a survey of the congregation and many raised their hand and shared that they have had prayers answered, but it’s a question of whether it’s an answer to prayer or if God is operative in our every day life. We must ask for faith and a deeper understanding that if God doesn’t answer our prayers, he will deliver a good answer with our best interest in mind. Jesus is constantly telling us about persistence of prayer. Take the woman who nags at Jesus on the street. God says if an unjust judge will not answer this woman how much more will God bring justice to her? The reasons we ought to prayer is the same reason we ought to do everything – because Jesus said so. There will be a good deal of time between what we ask for and when we get it, and that our prayers are not always going to be good for us. Yes it is not according to our will but God’s will. God wants us to see us as dependent on him. We must examine our prayer life. IF we don’t pray every day we will be missing something. Ask for the Lord to be with us every day through even small prayers to keep the relationship going. See if we can add more prayer to strengthen our relationship with him. He will abide.