7th Week, Ordinary Time, Saturday, 21-05-16

James 5:13-20 / Mark 10:13-16

Prayer is the essence of every Christian. To pray is not an option for the Christian but it is like a commandment.

Because prayer is not just to be in communication with God but to be in communion with God. Another way of putting it is that prayer is a relationship with God.

As the 1st reading puts it - If any one of you is in trouble, he should pray; if anyone is feeling happy, he should sing a psalm. If anyone is ill, he must be prayed over.

Certainly the heartfelt prayer of a good man works very powerfully, just like when the prophet Elijah prayed hard and no rain fell for three-and-a -half years, and then he prayed again and the sky gave rain.

But it is not just the prayers of adults who will be heard. The prayers of children will be heard too although we may wonder how much do children understand what they are saying.

Yet in Psalm 8 it says this: How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth! Your majesty is praised above the heavens; on the lips of children and of babes you have found praise to foil your enemy, to silence the foe and the rebel.

That is how powerful the prayer of children can be. But they won't know how to pray if there is no one to teach them. They won't know how to pray if they have never heard of prayer before.

So let us teach the young ones how to pray. That would be the best thing we can ever do for the next generation.