Wants and Needs

And the people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic,




"Courage, child, your sins are forgiven."

When I was a boy about eight years old I decided that what would make me king of the neighborhood was a rifle.  It's not like it would have been a huge expense for my parents because my father worked at Spiegel's which was once a huge mail order catalog store so he received a discount on all of the stuff he purchased there. Now, if you've followed the bits and pieces of my story that I have revealed in this blog you will know that I lived on the southwest side of Chicago and while it might have been cool to own a rifle, it would serve no practical purpose what so ever.  So, in spite of all my hints, a 22 caliber rifle was never one of the things that I owned and truth be told a couple of weeks after the thought entered my head, it left, its place taken be another childhood want.  My parents were good at fulfilling my needs and often got me stuff that was not on my list.  For example, I was packed off to an orthodontist in spite of my moaning and groaning that I did not need my teeth straightened. I did, they knew it, they acted upon it and it was an act of love, an act of fulfilling a need.

In our reading today, a lot of commentators will comment on what the enemies of Jesus were thinking and how Jesus got the best of them.  But I think there is shown here a Jesus who tenderly separates needs from wants for the paralyzed person.  He could see that the person could not walk or move. He knew that because he had two eyes to see.  He also could see deep into the victim's soul and he saw a need there that was more important to fix than any physical problem and he tackled it head on.  He forgave the sins of the paralyzed person.  We can only imagine what those sins were after all what sins could a person who could not move commit?  Well, we can only speculate but Jesus knew, he saw a need, and he proceeded to fulfill it. Was the person on the stretcher surprised?  Were they disappointed?  Or did they feel the freedom and joy that forgiveness brings?  We are not told.  Once Jesus satisfied the person's needs, He then satisfied the wants.

When we pray, maybe we should ask for the many things that we need to turn our life so as to mirror the life of Christ.  All of these things will be granted to us and later, at a time where it is optimal for our salvation, our wants will be satisfied as well.  Holiness comes when we trust our Lord to fulfill both wants and needs. 

Power in Prayer

"When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,

who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.


Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door,


and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."

JUNE 20, 2017 —One of Africa’s worst conflicts may have finally ended through a rare type of diplomacy. On June 19, more than a dozen armed groups in the Central African Republic signed a peace accord. Yet they did not do so through an official negotiator. Rather a religious group in Italy used what it calls a “spiritually inspired” method – building empathy and compassion – to help forge a truce. This diplomatic feat was achieved by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Roman Catholic lay group that works quietly and discreetly around the world to end conflicts. It puts prayer at the heart of its mediation. Its efforts have been so successful that the United Nations formally signed an agreement on June 9 to cooperate with Sant’Egidio in ending other conflicts. Its president, Marco Impagliazzo, says the group’s success lies in being seen as a neutral party that relies on patience and shared values to create trust between foes. (Christian Science News Monitor) 

Christians pray.  It's what we do. If you do not pray then you are a nominal Christian at best.  The thing that amazes me is those times when we get what we have prayed for, we are amazed, we are pretty much speechless.  The evidence of the power of prayer is all around us and it seems to remain invisible to us.  The fact that the sun rises and you are able to hear the birds sing is the result of someone asking God for this.  Does that sound fanciful? Surely, the sun rises and sets in accordance with the laws of the universe.  True, but the fact you are there to see it may be because a prayer warrior somewhere prayed for your well -being and that load of bricks on the fiftieth floor of the office building did not plummet to the ground while you walked over the exact spot that they would have landed.  All of us owe a lot to those who faithfully pray every day.  

Prayer is not our attempt to twist God's arm so as to force Him to give us what we want.  This is how pagans from ages past tried to control their gods.  We who worship God whose fingerprints are on everything and everyone in the universe have no need to twist His arm.  Mother Angelica says it best when she said, "Our prayer, no matter what it is, is asking God, "Do you love me?" and His answer, no matter if it is "Yes" or "No" or "Wait" is His affirmation that He does love us."

So, become a prayer warrior.  Pray for others and get out of yourself.  Your trust in God means that He will meet your needs, not necessarily your wants. He wants us to ask and he longs like a loving Father to give us what is best for us.  When you pray you don't change God, you change yourself.