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Connections
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| Posted: Nov 10 2008 at 4:18pm | IP Logged
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I was just told by someone that she never prays for herself because she believes it would be selfish.
Please share your reactions to this with me.
It is my understanding (as a recent revert and cradle Catholic who, BTW, is LOVING the Faith and finding so much comfort and joy in it) that God wants us to turn to Him. He wants us to trust Him and love Him and thank Him and yes, ask Him when we are in need. (Now, I realize there is a difference between, for example, asking for a new pair of pants and asking for strength and patience to parent.)
It is my understanding that He wants us to ask for help and to see Him as the source for our grace. While we need to trust God's will, I never interpreted this as a statement to "not pray for ourselves because it is selfish."
Your input is appreciated.
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Blessings,
Tracey
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guitarnan
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| Posted: Nov 10 2008 at 4:25pm | IP Logged
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I pray for the grace to be a good wife, mother and wage-earner every single day. I don't think it's selfish to ask God to show me His path for my life and to help me follow it. I envision this type of prayer as seeing Jesus in the distance and running to meet Him, knowing He is there in complete goodness and mercy. It's very, very comforting.
I am a firm believer in St. Therese's Little Way, in offering up all the tiny trials of daily life for Jesus. It's wonderful to think that all of life can really, truly be prayer!
Hope this helps!
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: Nov 10 2008 at 6:25pm | IP Logged
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I suppose praying for oneself could be selfish, like eating could be gluttonous (sp?). It would be prudent to self-check prayers for ourselves and to ensure that we are praying for others while not being self-centered. Yet, to not pray for oneself at all could also be viewed as prideful and disconnected (although not praying for oneself could be simply a misunderstanding of prayer.) Praying for oneself is one of the most humbling acts one can do, especially to pray for forgiveness. From the Cathechism of the Catholic Church bolding is mine:
Quote:
II. PRAYER OF PETITION
2629 The vocabulary of supplication in the New Testament is rich in shades of meaning: ask, beseech, plead, invoke, entreat, cry out, even "struggle in prayer."102 Its most usual form, because the most spontaneous, is petition: by prayer of petition we express awareness of our relationship with God. We are creatures who are not our own beginning, not the masters of adversity, not our own last end. We are sinners who as Christians know that we have turned away from our Father. Our petition is already a turning back to him.
2630 The New Testament contains scarcely any prayers of lamentation, so frequent in the Old Testament. In the risen Christ the Church's petition is buoyed by hope, even if we still wait in a state of expectation and must be converted anew every day. Christian petition, what St. Paul calls {"groaning," arises from another depth, that of creation "in labor pains" and that of ourselves "as we wait for the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved."103 In the end, however, "with sighs too deep for words" the Holy Spirit "helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words."104
2631 The first movement of the prayer of petition is asking forgiveness, like the tax collector in the parable: "God, be merciful to me a sinner!"105 It is a prerequisite for righteous and pure prayer. A trusting humility brings us back into the light of communion between the Father and his Son Jesus Christ and with one another, so that "we receive from him whatever we ask."106 Asking forgiveness is the prerequisite for both the Eucharistic liturgy and personal prayer.
2632 Christian petition is centered on the desire and search for the Kingdom to come, in keeping with the teaching of Christ.107 There is a hierarchy in these petitions: we pray first for the Kingdom, then for what is necessary to welcome it and cooperate with its coming. This collaboration with the mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit, which is now that of the Church, is the object of the prayer of the apostolic community.108 It is the prayer of Paul, the apostle par excellence, which reveals to us how the divine solicitude for all the churches ought to inspire Christian prayer.109 By prayer every baptized person works for the coming of the Kingdom.
2633 When we share in God's saving love, we understand that every need can become the object of petition. Christ, who assumed all things in order to redeem all things, is glorified by what we ask the Father in his name.110 It is with this confidence that St. James and St. Paul exhort us to pray at all times.111 |
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Tracey, I'm so glad that you find comfort and joy in our Faith - me too! Nothing you wrote sounds selfish or prideful to me  .
Love,
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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aussieannie
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| Posted: Nov 10 2008 at 11:11pm | IP Logged
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Lovely Angie, thanks for sharing that quote!
No, it is definatly not selfish! We must do our best to get our souls to heaven! Also, other people are reliant on us! As wives and mothers we know this only too well...how many of us have discovered that we cannot pass virtue onto our children if we don't possess it ourselves???  So we must pray for it, we can't 'achieve it' any other way - we MUST pray for ourselves.
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SuzanneG
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Praying for myself helps me to remember how much I depend on God for everything. We have a tendency to think it's all up to us, but really we just need to "pedal the bike" and God takes care of the rest. And, other people depend on me....I need to pray for myself to be better for THEM and for God's kingdom, not just for myself.
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Willa
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| Posted: Nov 11 2008 at 11:38am | IP Logged
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Others have answered well already, Tracey -- I just wanted to add that I often tag a more general petition onto my personal ones. If I am praying for a pre-teen child of mine, I try to add a prayer for all the pre-teens struggling with hormones out there, etc.
I feel like God gave me my desires and feelings for a reason, and that they help connect me to the rest of the Body of Christ. ... my part of the central nervous system, I suppose.
When I feel hungry for something, even something relatively superficial, I can usually think of other people who are hungrier than me, but that's not a sign that I should simply "stuff" my craving but that I should widen it out to participate in the general hunger of the world.
The Little Flower (St Therese of Lisieux) often meditated on Jesus's words on the Cross: "I thirst". He cried out for something that He desired and needed physically -- but traditionally, Catholic saints have taken that to express not only physical thirst -- which He surely felt -- but also a spiritual thirst felt in communion with all the sinning souls who needed to come to the Living Waters.
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Willa
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Carole N.
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I just want to share how praying helped our family. I kept praying for the conversion of one of my dc for a very long time. It seemed like my prayers were not answered even though I knew that many were praying for this child.
A friend told me that she also had prayed for a dc, but it was not until she prayed for her own conversion that her prayers were answered. I began to pray for my ds and for myself and within weeks both of us received experiences that I can only describe as a conversion. My prayers continue daily for both of us. It is a continuing work of God. But I always remember that I am not the *perfect* mother and must remember myself in the prayers as well.
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 Carole ... in Wales
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Topic: Praying for yourself- selfish??
