The Prayer of Need

Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time A-1

Entrance Antiphon Ps 13 (12):6 O Lord, I trust in your merciful love. My heart will rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord who has been bountiful with me.

Collect Grant, we pray, almighty God, that, always pondering spiritual things, we may carry out in both word and deed that which is pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: James 3:13-18; Psalm 19:8-10, 15; Mark 9:14-29

As Jesus came down from the mountain with Peter, James, John and came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. What are you arguing with them about? he asked. A man in the crowd answered, Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not. O unbelieving generation, Jesus replied, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me. So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy's father, How long has he been like this? From childhood, he answered. It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. 'If you can'? said Jesus. Everything is possible for him who believes. Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, I do believe; help my unbelief! When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. You deaf and mute spirit, he said, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again. The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, He's dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, Why couldn't we drive it out? He replied, This kind can come out only by prayer. (Mark 9:14-29)

The Prayer of Need John Calvin laid it down in the first book of his Institutes (3.1.) that “the human mind, even by natural instinct, possesses some sense of a deity,” and that “God has given to all some apprehension of his existence”. For support, he cites Cicero who writes in his well‑known book On the Nature of the Gods that there is no nation so barbarous as not to be firmly persuaded of the being of a God. Be that as it may — and with the far greater knowledge we now have of the religions of man, we can say that it is not quite as simple as that — a further question is, what are the foundations or sources of the religious sense? What prompts man to turn to the unseen powers above? Again, there is no simple answer, but one source is clearly man’s experience of need, vulnerability and helplessness. He is in such constant need of help — help that is beyond the reach of his own capacity and the capacity of others around him. There are many things that bear down on a person or a family or a community that no one seems able to do anything about. What is to be done? The only thing, ultimately, that the subject can do is turn to the unseen and ask for aid. That is surely one source of religion in the life of man, but of course it is not the only source. In our Gospel scene today we have an instance of helplessness so characteristic of man’s situation. The man in the crowd was helpless before the affliction long endured by his son. It had affected his son since his childhood. The description given by the father would suggest something like epilepsy but it was more than that because the demonic was involved too. “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not (Mark 9:14‑29). His sense of need led the father of the boy to turn to Christ for aid. We too ought turn to Christ for aid in all our needs.

What was our Lord’s response? He calmly asked the father about his son. He was compassionate and, humanly speaking, wished to know the case in detail. But then the father in desperation cried out, “But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” In part, it was an excellent prayer, and we have examples of the prayer of need elsewhere in the Gospels. We remember how the group of lepers called out to our Lord, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on us!” Our Lord immediately told them to go to the priests and show themselves, and as they were leaving they were cleansed of their leprosy. On another occasion the blind beggar Bar Timaeus called repeatedly to our Lord that he have pity on him. Our Lord summoned him and having asked him what he could do for him, there and then restored his sight. The appeal to God in Christ for aid is something God wants us to do continually. St Alphonsus in one of his books writes that the reason why we do not receive a lot more from God is that we ask so little of him. The reason why we ask so little of him is that we don’t really believe that asking God for what we need will make much difference. We lack faith in the goodness and power of God — and this may mean, in some cases, that we don’t really believe in God. This very important point in all of the prayer that arises from our human need is the very point that becomes the issue in our Gospel passage today. The father of the boy appeals to our Lord saying, if you can do anything, help us! Our Lord’s response was immediate: “‘If you can’? said Jesus. Everything is possible for him who believes.” We must take that to heart in all our prayer. If we recognize that we lack faith, then we ought pray for it, and for this we have the excellent prayer of the father of the boy in our Gospel passage. “I do believe; help my unbelief!” I suggest that every time we pray for something we need we include in that very prayer of petition the further petition for faith that is contained in these words of the father of the boy. Let us ask God for what we need, and let us ask for the grace to believe that he will answer our prayer in the way he knows best.

The best prayer of petition is the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer he taught his disciples when they asked him to teach them how to pray. Go through it and observe what our Lord says we ought be asking for. Another excellent prayer of petition is the Hail Mary, addressed to Mary the mother of Christ asking her to pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Let us go to Christ as did the father of the boy and ask him for the help we need, asking him too for faith to believe that he can indeed help us.

(E.J.Tyler)

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