We often pray for what may be outside God’s control: that someone may give up drink, when the person may not want to; that children will be kept safe on the roads, but they are killed or injured with the careless and dangerous driving of someone else, maybe under addictive influence.

We are encouraged always to pray with hope and persistence, believing that we always get something. In the asking is the receiving, and we never leave prayer worse off than when we began.

For any time we give to prayer, we get something. We are transformed. St Ignatius speaks of the effect of prayer – an increase in faith, hope and love. We may not get the specific intention but we always get the Holy Spirit. I have never left prayer the poorer than when I began. In the knocking at the door itself something is opened. In asking and seeking we get something. The first gift of prayer is the love of God. Other gifts follow.

Prayer increases our trust in God, that he wants our good and is with us in love.

So we pray for what we need and then leave the prayer with God, to be answered as he can. This is one of the greatest faiths of all.

Our Father,
holy be your name,
your kingdom come and
will be done within me and
in earth and heaven.

Donal Neary S.J.