TUESDAY OF THE TWENTY-THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME, SEPTEMBER 07, 2021

MASS READINGS

A Reading from the Gospel of Lk 6:12-19

Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called a Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. And he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground. A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured. Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.

REFLECTION

Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.

What is prayer? Why did even Jesus pray? Here are the Saints defining prayer.

"Prayer, for me, is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both pride and joy."

St. Thérèse of Lisieux

"Prayer is in fact the recognition of our limits and dependence: we come from God, we are of God, and to God we return."

Pope St. John Paul II

"If you are not a man of prayer, I don’t believe in the sincerity of your intentions when you say that you work for Christ."

St. JoseMaria Escriva

"Prayer is on terms of friendship with God, frequently conversing in secret with him whom, we know, loves us."

St. Teresa of Avila

"Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst and ours."

St. Augustine

"If the lungs of prayer and of the Word of God do not nourish the breath of spiritual life, we risk suffocating in the midst of a thousand daily cares. Prayer is the breath of the soul and of life."

Pope Benedict XVI

"Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of Himself."

St. Mother Teresa

"Our strength is in prayer, and the prayer of a humble person is the weakness of God. The Lord is weak only in this one sense: He is weak before the prayers of His people."

Pope Francis

"Prayer is the best weapon we possess. It is the key that opens the heart of God."

Padre Pio Pietrecina

Prayer is a "surge of the heart," "It's recognition of our weaknesses and dependency,"

"The lungs of prayer and of the Word of God must nourish," Our strength is in prayer, and the prayer of a humble is the weakness of God," "Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God's gift of Himself, and "Prayer is the best weapon we possess," all these definitions have messages that say the same thing. The Almighty God listens to our prayers and that makes them powerful.

PAPA is a prayer apostolate. Just think of the good we can do for ourselves and others, especially for the priests. Please, be faithful to the promise we made by pledging to pray daily our PAPA Prayer for Priests. They need our prayers and we need God to continue to help them, because this ultimately helps us.

Let us pray our PAPA Prayer for Priests.