On Friday morning, I picked up the newspaper and I was horrified to read of the great tragedy that happened in Colorado. I am sure as you have read and watched the news unfold your hearts felt like mine. I was saddened deeply of the pain and hurt that one man could inflict on so many. A man shot and over 60 people killing 12 of them in a movie theatre. Where was the love for the humanity in the midst of this man’s senseless hate? I read an account of a couple who pulled a 16 year-old boy to safety. He had been shot in the leg twice. He simply wanted to know that his sister was safe and wanted the couple to pray for him. In the midst of all the chaos his mind went to others and to God. Is this surprising? To me, no. Time and again in the presence of a great suffering, we go to God crying out, “Why God!” or “Help Me!” or we are only able to cry tears of sorrow in his presence. You see the human person is made not only with a body but with a soul. The human person is made by God to long to be with Him. In times of suffering and sorrow this longing becomes stronger and we have the experiences that this 16 year old boy showed us.

Last Friday night, we had a concert here by Chris Baker. It was excellent. He sang a song which moved me and speaks about our topic of prayer. He sang, “Bread to big, toaster to small.” “Bread to big, toaster to small, should I get out of bed at all.” Okay, that’s not the song that I was thinking of but it was a fun one. He sang these wordswhich he said came to him in a dream. I think they are words of prayer. “Love is not loved enough!” Who is love? Yes, exactly God! God is not loved enough. If God is loved enough then we would not have the tragedies like had happened in Colorado.

When we pray, we go to the very place of love. We learn how to love God. We allow him to teach us how to love. Today’s Gospel speaks of this. The apostles had just done all this mission work for God. They had gone out and proclaimed the good news of Jesus. Remember last week, they were sent out two by two to proclaim repentance of sin and to heal the sick. They were entering into the hurt and pain, the tragedies if you will of humanity and from that they brought the saving message of Jesus. Well they came back to Jesus. They must have been worn out, they must have been tired. Jesus

said to them “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” He knew that they needed rejuvenation and rest. So he said, come with me. Spend some time resting with me. That is what prayer is! It is resting with Jesus.

These words though are not just for the Apostles. We too have busy lives. We have our work. Sometimes driving to work if you work in Dallas is work itself. We have school activities that we are preparing for. We have our children’s sports and music programs. We have all the things around our homes. The cooking, the cleaning, and the washing. We have to prepare for special events like birthday parties and we have even activities in Church. We have all of these activities. We are busy. And in the midst of all this, Jesus is saying the same words to us that he said to his apostles. “Come and rest with me for

a while.” That’s what prayer is. It is a time of rest and relaxation of the body and soul.

So ultimately, what is prayer? Prayer is the entering into the relationship with God. To have a relationship is to communicate. Prayer is the communication we have with God. That simple. Now with every communication, we have someone who speaks and someone who what? Yes, you got it, listens. I have been at some families where everyone is speaking at the same time and no one is listening. This doesn't work. There is no communication that is occurring. We need someone to speak and to listen for communication to occur. For us and God, there are times that we speak but there should be ample time in which we listen to him, our beloved speak to us.

Now some out there might be, but how can we dare speak or listen to God. I mean he is divine and we are not. He is big and we are small. For you, I want you to look at the cross. There is God’s answer to that question. He became small so that we could communicate with Him for ever. That is God’s answer. Jesus hung on that cross out of love for us so that we may be able to talk to Him and tell Him we love Him. This is his ultimate way of telling us that He loves us and He does so over and over again when we come to Him in prayer.

St. Jose Marie Escriva was asked many times how to pray. This is something that most priests have had a similar question posed. St. Escriva responded by saying ““You don’t know how to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and as soon as you have said, “Lord, I don’t know how to pray!” You can be sure you’ve already begun.” Indeed prayer is simply begun. If you dont know how to pray start thinking of Jesus, talking to Him, and listening to Him and prayer has begun.

St. Jean Marie Vienney relayed in a story of a man who used to stay in the back of his small country church and would just look forward. One day he went up to the man and asked him what he was doing and the man said, I look at Him and He looks at me. What communication. He would see Jesus and then would allow Jesus to see him completely. Have you seen the gaze of Jesus rest upon you. I am talking about something quite mystical. His loving gaze transforms and changes us.

God tells us that he loves us in a variety ways. He may speak powerfully in a way that is clear and there is no doubting that its God. I know I have experienced this and many of you too at some point in your life. His message to us comes from His power and is life changing. Most of the time, he speaks much more subtlety. There is a sense of warmth or love. Maybe peace or joy is given when it is needed. Perhaps its a knowledge that one is not alone. This is all accompanied with that message in our minds that is meant for us alone. Most of us who have spent time in prayer have experienced this over and over again. Finally, God’s may seem to be silent in our prayer. We may ask God, “Where are you?” I haven’t heard from you in a long time. This is most of our experiences too. We are not alone. The saints have had this same experience. Think of Mother Theresa whom Jesus came to in visions. She had long stretches of her life where she never sensed God speaking to her. Yet, she kept praying.

The reality is that God wants to speak to us personally. And depending upon our life’s situation, he may say to us words of consolation or challenge. To a young lady, His message might be like this. Don’t you know of your immense dignity. I love you deeply as you are. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else to get that guys attention. You already have mine as you are. To another He might say, “I know how your heart hurts. You feel alone after the death of someone so close. I am here with you always. I will not leave you alone.” At another time he might say words of challenge. “You fool! You think that you can have sex outside of marriage and live a good life. Stop and repent of your ways.” This message to is one of love. Each type of message that we receive from God in prayer is one for our good. It is there to help us to grow in love.

To help you to grow in prayer, I would like now to offer you some easy advice summed up in three words that begin with the letter “P.” I thought about using the acronym PCP, but those visions are of a quite different sort. The three “P” words: Preparation, Posture, and Perseverance.

Preparation: We need to prepare ourselves to prayer. Imagine if you were making a great dinner for some guests and you did no preparation. You just took what was in your refrigerator and through it in a big pot and began cooking. That meal would not turn out to good. The same it is with prayer. If I was to listen to Metallica before my time of prayer, would I have a good prayer? Whose voice would I be hearing in my prayer? Probably Metallica’s. The same is with tv shows, etc. We need to prepare ourselves to pray. Before our prayer time, we can begin to silence the things around us. Turn off the radio for a bit. Finish those last activities beginning to thinking about God. When you go to pray you can think of Jesus and allow those other thoughts to leave. Some people find slowing their breath helpful and breathing in the name of Jesus and exhaling the name Christ. After doing this very a couple of minutes, one is prepared to pray.

Second word: Posture. God did not make us only with souls flying around. No. He made us with bodies: well-sculpted beautiful bodies. Or (rubbing my stomach) ... perhaps our bodies are starting to break down and round out. But, we all have bodies. Our posture is very important when it comes to pray. If we try to pray lying on a bed, we are not going to do a very good job. We are going to end up falling asleep. Instead pray standing up. Go to the prayer corner of your house and kneel down. Maybe you have a time of listening and you sit straight up ready to listen to what God speaks in scripture. Indeed we can even pray with our bodies. St. Dominic introduced the prayer postures. He would have his followers to assume the position of the cross. Before long they would start to feel a little of what being on the cross meant. So posture is important.

Finally, Perseverance. We need to persevere in prayer. Father Larry Richard’s once said, “You got to pray just to make it today.” No, that was MC Hammer. Fr. Richard’s said, “No bible, no breakfast. No Bible, no bed.” “No Bible, no breakfast. No Bible, no bed.” “No Bible, no breakfast. No Bible, no bed.” Think about this phrase. He is saying that praying is as important as eating and sleeping. Its our souls way of rejuvenating. We need to persevere in our prayer time. One day we might not feel like it. Another we may want to watch this show or that. An exception can real easily become the general rule. For prayer, we need to set a time and stick to it. We need to create a discipline of prayer. It doesnt matter if we feel like it or if we feel like God is not there. The most important thing is that we do prayer. We persevere in prayer.

So to grow in our prayer, our communication with God, we need to prepare, have posture, and persevere.

My friends, prayer is the way in which we are enabled to love Love enough. God who is love teaches us how to love in prayer by first reminding us that we are made to love. If we pray and teach others to pray, we will enroll in the school of love. Slowly, in our lives tragedies will be less and if our culture becomes all enrolled in this school of love then the tragedies like which happened in Colorado will slowly stop happening. On that day, we will have helped make the kingdom of God come to be here on this earth. Jesus says, "Come away by yourselves and rest a while."