Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Lord, teach us how to pray.
We don't know the man's name who asked this question.
It was just one of our Lord's disciples, apparently not even one of the apostles.
Other passages seem to indicate that it may have been one of the apostles.
But this question addressed to our Lord
rings down the ages to us here at this sacrifice of the Mass
because it is one of the most fundamental questions we can ask the Lord.
And his response was to teach us, of course, our Father
and all followers of Christ since these words were spoken have prayed in this way.
Without the grace of God and his teaching, we don't know what to pray for.
We don't know what dispositions to have in order to please God.
Jesus tells us to have recourse to our Father and to glorify his holy name, to praise him
for his goodness and to ask him for everything that we need, most especially his mercy.
Because if we have his mercy, if we are trying to reach out to God in such a way that we obtain the forgiveness of our sins
and put him first, praise his holy name, then as he promises us elsewhere, everything shall be given to us.
Everything that we need, everything that is good and that will bring us happiness,
everything that we need, everything that is good and that will bring us happiness,
and salvation.
So our Lord, in teaching us our Father, teaches us a prayer that we can repeat over and over again.
In the Gospel where he tells us not to rattle on like the pagans,
he's not telling us not to pray the Our Father, he taught us the Our Father.
And these petitions of the Our Father and the repetition of the Our Father,
the devotional...
Emotional repetition of this prayer helps us to appreciate what it is that we need to think about, desire, and pray for.
We need to put God's kingdom first.
We need to pray for the things that we need to obtain our salvation.
That also includes our daily bread, our daily sustenance, the things that we need to be able to live tranquilly in this world.
But before everything else, it is to do the holy will of God and to obtain the forgiveness of our sins.
And whether we're praying the Our Father or praying privately on our own or in our own way, these are the dispositions that we need to have.
And more than anything else, in order to serve God, to glorify.
his holy name, and to ultimately enter into his kingdom, before anything else, we need to learn how to pray.
We need to learn how to pray and be faithful to a life of prayer.
Because our battle in this world is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers.
And it's a supernatural.
It's a supernatural.
It's a supernatural battle for our souls.
And as Saint Maximilian Kolbe said, in order to fight a supernatural battle, you need to have a supernatural weapon.
And that weapon is prayer.
It is our union with God.
And our union with God is sustained and consolidated and augmented through a life of prayer.
And we need to entrust to God our lives completely to his care.
Not just our eternal salvation, but all of the cares that we have in this world.
Our temporal needs, our financial needs, the cares that our family experienced, the sicknesses that we find in ourselves and in those around us.
And the needs of our society.
Our country.
You know there is so much trouble now with today and with war and terrorism and the financial crisis.
Everyone is worried and concerned.
The future is uncertain.
We live in this time is an election year.
And in that sense the future is also uncertain.
Before anything else,
we need to pray.
especially those of us who are concerned for the culture of life and the future of our country
in terms of whether or not we're going to be able to protect life better in the future
or whether it's going to be more difficult and whether more babies are going to die
and how our children are going to grow up in this world in the educational system
and whether or not the institution of marriage will be protected in the future or not.
All of these things hang in the balance and associated with these temporal issues
are, of course, the eternal salvation of many people.
And so while we have a lot of opinions about the way things should go in our election
and the way our country should proceed,
and the world, before anything else, we need to have a deep faith.
We need to have a Roman Catholic faith.
And we need to entrust our lives to Christ in that faith, in a life of prayer.
And so for those of us who are deeply concerned about the culture of life,
before anything else, we need to pray that our country is delivered
for the future of our country.
We need to pray that our country is delivered for the future of our country.
We need to pray that our country is delivered from evil.
We pray in every Our Father.
We ask Our Father to deliver us from evil.
We need to be delivered from evil.
And so we can debate and discuss and tell people what we think,
but before anything else, we should be praying and fasting
for an outcome for this election that is pleasing to God
and that is in the interest of God.
And so we need to pray for the conversion of the people
and that is in the interest of God.
And we also need to pray for the conversion of those
who militate against the culture of life,
those who are the apostles for the culture of death,
those who promote it, those who vote for abortion
and keep it legal and who are pushing same-sex marriage on this country
and doing many things.
making all kinds of other decisions that militate against
the rights of parents and the good of family life,
we need to pray for the conversion.
Not only that they should, you know,
that their schemes should not be successful,
but also that they should be converted.
And this connection I mentioned the other day,
Archbishop Burke, he also said from Rome,
as the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura,
which is the highest court in the Roman church,
he said that these pro-abortion Catholic,
quote unquote Catholic politicians
should be admonished privately,
and then they should be denied communion.
Because in the canon law, it says that those who
obstinately persist and manifest grave sin
should not receive communion,
they should not be given communion.
And it's not an excommunication,
it's not a
canonical penalty.
What the church says is that if a person,
after having been admonished,
continues along the way of sin publicly,
by the policies that they promote in their political life,
by their votes as politicians,
or even if they're not politicians,
if they make a public display so that everyone in the church
knows what they are doing,
and are flagrantly disobeying the law of Christ,
then they should not be given communion.
Not because anybody knows the state of their soul,
not because you know automatically
that they're not in a state of grace,
that really has nothing to do with it.
It's because if we're not conformed to Christ
in his teaching as it's manifested to us
by the magisterium,
then we are not in union with the church.
And we are not in a position to be receiving communion.
We are not in a position to be receiving holy communion.
And that's the obligation of the church
to protect the Eucharist,
make sure that the Eucharist is,
Jesus, our Lord,
is treated with love, devotion, and adoration.
Aside from that though,
it is not an act of charity to let people think
that disobeying Christ and his teaching
is going to bring us
to salvation.
It is not an act of charity to allow people
to run down the road of perdition
without being corrected.
And so we need also to pray for the conversion
of those who promote the culture of death,
that they may see the light,
that they may find the truth and follow it.
And we need also to pray for healing in our country
and an enlightenment,
that we might all find and promote the culture of life,
that we might vote in a way to protect the lives of babies
and the institution of marriage and general sanity in the light
of the teaching.
The teaching of Jesus, Jesus Christ.
A lot of things are in the balance.
You know, if the Supreme Court becomes dominated
by judicial activists who are going to secure Roe v. Wade
and then knock down any decent laws against abortion
or that which protect the institution of marriage,
our country is going to be in deep trouble
for the next 30 years.
So Catholics need to have a Catholic conscience
and they need to vote in a Catholic way.
But before everything else, all of us, whether we're Republican
or Democrat, no matter who we are inclined to support,
need to get down on our knees and ask God that we have the grace
to follow his holy commandments and his wisdom
and that he deliver us from evil.
That he deliver us from evil.
That he deliver us from evil.
And that he give us all the grace to do what is right,
first of all, by him, and then in him,
what is right for our country and for the salvation of all.
And that he give us all the grace to do what is right for us.
And that he give us all the grace to do what is right for us.