“Prayer As Praise And Adoration How many of us remember racing home after school or an event, anxious to share some good news about something positive we had accomplished or something we were praised for by our teacher, sports coach or peers? Do you remember the feeling of excitement and anticipation of what a parent or caregiver might say?
Do you remember the breathless exhilaration you felt when they seriously examined your work of art or report card, took time to assess it, and bathed you with praise, maybe even kisses and hugs, for work well done? Or were they too distracted with their labours, maybe reading the paper, a bit too busy with their worldly duties? “Later, honey, I’ll look at it later.” Maybe they just took a brief moment to glance at your ribbon, or spelling award, perhaps with an appreciative smile, but quickly went back to what occupied them? Probably we’ve experienced all of the above, but these brief moments in our early years tend to be highly significant. These positive or negative memories are deeply embedded in our minds, critical, formative moments of keenly felt emotion: “Wow! They love me and care about me!” or “I guess they don’t really care.” We may not think of it from this perspective, but when we do not praise or focus loving attention on God, our Creator feels abandoned in the same way. OT scripture tells us God desires our love, attention, and praise: Exodus 20.5-6: “You shall not bow down to [idols] or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” In Hosea 1.1-4, we see God’s anguish at Israel’s lack of love and attention for him: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.” Clearly, God in his greatness and power, is also the Father of Love who naturally seeks praise and recognition, just as we do in any positive, passionate, symbiotic relationship, as images of God. Some may say, “But God is Not a child!” And yet, are we not all still children? Do not our parents, loved ones, elderly, the poor and displaced also need praise, attention and love? “As you do for the least of these, you do for me.” Parents, remember the joy you feel when your child praises you for dinner, or fixing their bicycle or helping them with homework? Praise does not spoil! Praise strengthens, heals, encourages, and assures the bonds of love between us, our children, and God. And this is the Prayer of Praise and Adoration, the last of our series on defining prayer, the culmination of the other 5 forms of prayer: confession, supplication, intercession, thanksgiving, and lament. And with this understanding, God must be the ultimate recipient of our praise and adoration. Why? Because he gave us life! No Hollywood celebrity nor Sports icon we may praise can ever equal the work of God! We are walking miracles. How could we not in awe itself fail to praise God? It is this awe which should move us to praise God every morning we awake to another day, praise God for those we love and encounter in the day to come, and praise God at night for another day of labour and love as his profound creation. PS 139.13-18: “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; this I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” Jeremiah admits, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more of his name, then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”’ Jesus calls us to think as God does, not as humans do; to seek his guidance for a life governed by the spiritual, not over-indulgence in the material. When we follow God, we praise him who gave us life. Jesus gave us the most profound Prayer of Praise and Adoration in all Christianity. The first line rightly begins with praise for God, our Father, our true parent, the first of our duties as brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us pray together, the Lord’s Prayer: … Our Father … Amen. Fr Christopher Tracey, Pastor Saint Joseph Roman Catholic Parish Saugeen Shores, Ontario
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Father's Blog
Rev. Fr. Christopher Tracey
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