ROME — When we pray, we do not give God orders for Him to serve our projects, Pope Francis told pilgrims to the Vatican on Wednesday.
In his weekly General Audience, the pope suggested Christians can fall into the error of treating God like a genie who grants wishes, as “something magical,” rather than humbly submitting ourselves to his will.
“Prayer is not a magic wand: it is a dialogue with the Lord,” Francis said. “Indeed, when we pray we can give in to the risk of not being the ones to serve God, but of expecting Him to serve us.”
“This is, then, a prayer that is always demanding, that wants to direct events according to our own design, that admits no plans other than our own desires,” he continued, before noting that Jesus Himself taught his disciples to pray “thy will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer.
The pope also addressed a “radical objection” that some have to prayer, namely the experience of not being heard, or at least not receiving what we ask for, even when it is something noble and good.
“We all have experience of this: we have prayed, prayed, for the illness of a friend, of a father, of a mother, and so it went,” he said. “But God did not grant our request! It is an experience we have all had.”
“When we pray, we need to be humble: this is the first attitude for going to pray,” Francis insisted, and before praying we must tell ourselves “that God will give me what it is right to give. He knows.”
“When we pray we must be humble, so that our words are actually prayers and not just idle talk that God rejects,” he added.
“In prayer, it is God Who must convert us, not we who must convert God,” he asserted. “It is humility. I go to pray but You, Lord, convert my heart so that it asks for what is convenient, for what will be best for my spiritual health.”
The pontiff also encouraged his listeners to reflect back upon their own experience of God’s care and his way of answering their prayers.
“Let us look back a little: how many times have we asked for a grace, a miracle, let’s say, and nothing has happened,” he said. “Then, over time, things have worked out but in God’s way, the divine way, not according to what we wanted in that moment.”
“God’s time is not our time,” he added.
Even the prayer that Jesus addresses to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane seems to go unheard, Francis noted. “It seems that the Father does not listen to Him.”
But after Christ’s passion and death comes his resurrection, Francis noted, and evil never has the last word.
“The evil one is never lord of the last day: God is the Lord of the last day,” he declared. “Because that belongs to God alone, and it is the day when all human longings for salvation will be fulfilled.”
“Let us learn this humble patience, to await the Lord’s grace, to await the final day,” he concluded.