What Is the Point of Prayer?

This is a message from Msgr. Zacharias Kunnakkattuthara, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Palestine, Texas, for July 17, 2005 (sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time). Republished with permission.

Dear Friends,

Prayers are used (and misused) for every conceivable purpose. A prayer is sometimes a perfunctory ritual before civic and social affairs . . . or a sporting event. Often, even in religious settings, prayer takes on a promotional or informational function: "Lord, bless the meeting of our officers at seven o'clock this evening." We may also forget to whom we are praying. A newspaper once reported that a certain prayer was "the finest prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience." What is the point of prayer?

Some see the point of prayer as [moving] an otherwise inactive God into action in the world. It is like calling God on stage from somewhere in the wings. Something in the world about us needs to be changed, so we pray. A little girl, saying her bedtime prayers, asked, "Dear God, make Dallas the capital of Texas." When she had finished, her mother asked why she had made such a request. She answered, "Because that's what I put on my test paper today in school." If the point of prayer is some rearrangement of the objective world, then we must say that, at least most of the time, it is ineffective. In a culture that is mistaken about the point of prayer, it is no wonder that so many complain about the futility of prayer. Any day you may hear, "I tried prayer. It didn't work." This kind of experience is not an argument against prayer but against superstition and magic. The point of prayer is not simply the rearrangement of the physical world.

Prayer is a form of communication. Communication is an expression of a relationship. Prayer is not mechanical, but relational. The point of prayer, then, is communion with God. Communion with God is more than one-way communication. No relationship can survive long when all the communication is from only one side. Communion with God involves at least as much listening as speaking. Prayer as communion means offering ourselves as we are to God, and it also means being open to God's presence, power, and purpose in our lives.

If you feel you don't know how to pray, there is good news for you. St. Paul's letter to the Romans tells us that God offers us help in a most remarkable way. He acknowledges that, in our weakness, "we do not know how to pray as we ought." But God's own Spirit intercedes for us. God's own Spirit carries our inarticulate yearnings to God's ears. When we don't know how to pray, we can trust God's own Spirit to come to our aid. God does not just hear our words, but listens to our "inexpressible groans," too.

Praying "in Jesus' name" will help us remember the point of prayer. To ask in Christ's name is to ask in the Spirit of Christ, to ask with something of Jesus' insight into the nature of God. For Jesus, prayer was intimate communion with God. Study the prayers of the saints. Rarely do they ask God for anything more than a clearer understanding of His will.

Your friend in Jesus,
Msgr. Zach