We all have known people who always want to pray for us, but in reality, they always want to foist their personal idea of what we should be or do upon us and have the authority of the Almighty as a blanket sanction for bossing and bullying others. This is quite common and gives prayer, indeed it given religion itself a bad name. This sort of "prayer" is nothing short of a kind of black magic or voodoo in which the personal will of the practitioner is spiritually sent out to capture or enforce a certain reality upon others irregardless of what the Holy Ghost has to say about the matter. The recent movie and book fad of The Secret is 100% cut from the cloth of this sort of misapprehension of the power of prayer. I read the darn thing and watched the movie, and then put it away, shaking my head and musing on the eternal gullibility of the human species to ideas promising wealth, utopia, love and happiness upon demand, all through "positive thinking" or "mind control" of whatever black magic nostrum du jour is popular. Ick.
From Vultus Christi, by Father Mark. Be sure to click on over & read it all. Here's a sample:
QUOTE If I pray to have some power over persons, things, or the course of events, my prayer is futile; it is, in some way, an anti-prayer. Prayer is the struggle to let go of every desire to have power over others, over things, and over the course of events. Prayer is adoration of the Divine Will in all its manifestations. UNQUOTE
No comments:
Post a Comment