Usually, I begin a blog with a theme, or thought in mind. The only thought that comes to my mind, at this time, is the aridity of my soul. The “dark night”, I guess, is what it has been called. I went over to the hospital this morning to bring Communion to any of the patients wishing to receive. There was no jump in my step, no feeling of being alive. I was almost ashamed to be bringing Jesus to these people, in my state of mind. At Mass, prior to going to the hospital, all I could do is ask Jesus to take my lethargy and somehow use it for the benefit of the people I would see today.
         It was in this state of mind, with this feeling of apathy, I entered the doors of the hospital. Now, I truly believe that to pray our personal prayers we must recognize and acknowledge the condition we are in. We must be aware of who we are at that time of prayer. For it is in this aspect of ourselves, in this condition, we make our prayer to our heavenly Father. We cannot dupe God. We cannot pretend to Him that we are something that we are not. He sees us as we are. To meet Him in the middle ground, we have to also see ourselves as we are. To me, my condition was one of sadness, of aloneness. It did not shout out that Jesus, my Lord, was with me. It did not manifest the joy of bringing Jesus to others. I felt truly like a hypocrite.
         I cannot go into any details about this morning’s actions. I can only say that by the time I had arrived at the patients’ floor my demeanor must have changed. I don’t know when or how it happened. I was not even aware that my apathy was gone. I just went about the business of seeing patients. Usually, as I get tired, the end of the morning sees me cutting shorter the visits with the patients. (As you can see, there is a lot of fixing up needed by me.) Today, however, was truly different. I sat and talked about Jesus. I told people about Padre Pio and what a great saint he is. I felt no need to hurry. I felt no tiredness. It was different, somehow.
         What is the purpose of this blog? Why all of this narrative? It is to simply say, “Our prayers do get answered”. It is our openness to God, our recognition and acknowledgement of our current condition, our willingness and desire to be at one with Him, it is all of these that unite us in prayer with God.
         This has nothing to do with me. I am simply recounting that I did not want to be a stumbling block to Jesus. I did not want to negatively affect the people I would see today, because of my state of mind. My prayer was simply a desire NOT to be an obstacle but my willingness to be a conduit, if it were His will. The fact of the matter was that I did not know what or who to pray for.
         We don’t know all the answers. We cannot pray for events to happen, because we don’t know if those events will be the best thing that could happen. Maybe we are to struggle a little more, and unbeknownst to us, that struggle is what will strengthen us, will purify us, and will make us united with Jesus. All we can pray for is trust. Trust in God, will enable us to truly say, “Your will be done.” Without trust, our prayer will sound like, “Your will be done…if I agree with it.”