The parable and teaching that follow the Lord’s Prayer make clear the particular purpose of prayer that Jesus was highlighting – prayer as petition. In this instance, Jesus assures us that if we pray for what we need with conviction and confidence, then God cannot fail to respond to our prayer. Jesus in fact encourages us to be demanding and persistent in our prayer. However, the parable used to demonstrate the persistent nature of prayer is not focused on demands for selfish purposes, but rather the neighbour needs assistance in fulfilling his obligations of hospitality to a traveller. He is not waking his neighbour in the middle of the night to ask for bread for himself; he asks for bread to give to his guest. He asks for help to fulfil his duty and responsibility. This gives us something of an idea about how we might focus our prayer. Praying for a pony or new bike isn’t quite in the same league!

The final element of the gospel passage provides us with a description of God’s love and care by something of a negative comparison: if human parents would not do harm instead of good to their children, God is even less likely to act like this towards us. It’s a bit of an odd way around of saying that God’s love is greater than anything within our experience or imagination.

A crucial aspect of prayer is the attitude with which we view God. We trust in God’s character that it is not a pointless exercise to ask for something. We trust that God is even more loving than a parent who tries to give their child what they need. If we did not make these basic assumptions about God, there would be little point in prayer. When our prayer lives falter at times, perhaps we need to first check out our relationship with God and our attitude towards God before trying to ‘fix’ the ways we pray. (Reflection by Greg Sunter).

This week as a family, take time to talk about prayer. Share with your children how you pray, when you pray and why. You may want to add a communal prayer time into your families schedule. A simple way of doing this is by saying grace before meals, or a night prayer before turning the lights off. 

St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal

THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your generous donations to the Vinnies Winter Appeal! Today the Mini-Vinnies team packed up the canned and dry goods donated and moved them to the parish centre. As it was raining we needed to use Mrs Thomas's car so we didn't take more than one trip and we filled it! The boot was stacked full, the backseat jammed packed and the front passenger seat also utilised! We are organising the Night Van to come and collect the warm clothing, but as you can see below from our photo, Margaret and Mary from the Calwell St Vincent de Paul chapter were blown away by our donations. The pantry for people in need is definitely now full!

Have a great week!