“Dear brothers and sisters, our entire lives are like this long night of struggle and prayer, spent in desiring and asking for God’s blessing, which cannot be grabbed or won through our own strength but must be received with humility from him as a gratuitous gift that ultimately allows us to recognize the Lord’s face. And when this happens, our entire reality changes; we receive a new name and God’s blessing.” (Pope Benedict XVI, from the General Audience, 25 May 2011)

For my part, I would rather prayer not be a long night of struggle as Pope Benedict suggested in his General Audience several years ago. I have been rereading these talks this past month as I renew my commitment to prayer and take time on reflecting on how prayer informs my life and the life of all Christians. Pope Benedict takes the life of Jacob and more importantly the days of travel and struggle as he returns with his family to his home from which he fled after deceiving his father Isaac to receive the blessing of inheritance. Pope Benedict reminds us that in this night of struggle where Jacob the
“Patriarch reveals his true identity as a deceiver, the one who supplants; however the other, who is God, transforms this negative reality into something positive: Jacob the deceiver becomes Israel, he is given a new name as a sign of a new identity.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
When I pray and think about this struggle and transformation, this new identity God offers to us in prayer, I begin to understand why the struggle is necessary. We, too often like Jacob, wish to hide and minimize the sin that is in our lives. We don’t want to acknowledge the pain sin cause to each of us and those around us. We would rather focus on the soft and gentle God and not deal with the harder and more demanding God who calls us into a transformation of life where we find the true peace and joy in the struggle. And of course God does not wish us to be defeated in the struggle but rather persevere in the long night of the struggle where we contend with the vices that have infected our soul and seek to be strengthened by the grace received through the intimate wrestling with God to grow in holiness and virtue.
“Prayer requires trust, nearness, almost a hand-to-hand contact that is symbolic not of a God who is an enemy, an adversary, but a Lord of blessing who always remains mysterious, who seems beyond reach. Therefore the author of the Sacred text uses the symbol of the struggle, which implies a strength of spirit, perseverance, tenacity in obtaining what is desired. And if the object of one’s desire is a relationship with God, his blessing and love, then the struggle cannot fail but ends in that self-giving to God, in recognition of one’s own weakness, which is overcome only by giving oneself over into God’s merciful hands.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
This is the sacramental reality of our Catholic faith and something I see played out again and again in marriage in my ministry in Worldwide Marriage Encounter. When husband and wife choose to enter into the nearness of trust where true and intimate conversations occur then prayer occurs and where prayer occurs then life is grown in abundance and nurtured in hope; spiritually, emotionally, physically and sexually. The struggle, the wrestling of life becomes a greater self-giving to the other through the grace celebrated, given and received. This occurs in all relationships as we seek the “hand-to-hand” contact of relationship becoming sacramental signs of love in the world as brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, true sons and daughters of the living God.
God’s invitation to each of us is to enter the battle, come into His presence with our lives and give our lives to God’s merciful love. See you at Mass.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

“Whoever allows himself to be blessed by God, who abandons himself to God, who permits himself to be transformed by God, renders a blessing to the world. May the Lord help us to fight the good fight of the faith (cf. 1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 4:7) and to ask, in prayer, for his blessing, that he may renew us in the expectation of beholding his Face.” (Pope Benedict XVI)