Have you noticed those books for recording "intentions" popping up in churches these days? Maybe they've been there all along, but it's only rather recently that I've become aware of them.
The books are there so that parishioners and visitors can write down things they'd like to have prayed for. Quite a few do. The intentions, set out for all the world to see and share, plainly come straight from the heart — "successful operation for Uncle Joe," "good new job for Cousin Kate," "happy marriage," things like that.
Who can help being moved? I don't criticize this kind of prayer in the least. It's a great testimony to faith. At the same time, though, it's worth considering whether there may be another approach to prayer that deserves to be cultivated alongside this one.
I'm no master of the interior life — just a slogger like everybody else. Lately, though, it's occurred to me that in the final analysis there are two, and only two, ways of praying for things. One is to pray that you'll get what you want. The other is to pray that you'll want what you get. There's a lot to be said for both, but, ideally, the second way strikes me as significantly better than the first.
If people pray at all, of course, it's likely they will spontaneously ask for things they want, like those folks who write intentions in the book at the back of the church. And why not? Prayer of petition acknowledges that God is the One on whom we ultimately depend for all our needs, large and small. No one is in a position to ignore that fundamental fact.
But beyond asking for what we want and need — or at least what we think we need, and most emphatically do want — there's another step to take. It's a step toward achieving a deeper relationship with God. It is the effort — to put it in slightly formal language — to conform our will to His, to want what God gives us.
This is how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane as the drama of his Passion began to unfold: "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22.42). That is equivalent to saying: Father, here's what I'd prefer to have — but what I want most of all is to want whatever you choose to send me.
Wanting what God gives rests upon a great act of trust. It is based on the recognition that God is our Father Who knows what we really need and can be counted on to give it to us. Our own powers of perception in these matters are clouded and distorted in many respects. Certainly we are entitled to ask for what we think will best suit our situation. But if we are truly wise, with a healthily childlike wisdom, we will receive whatever the Father sends us in the confident certainty that it really is best.
In his splendid book Jesus of Nazareth (Doubleday), Pope Benedict XVI says the petition "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" in the Lord's Prayer makes two things clear. One is that "God has a will with and for us and it must become the measure of our willing and being"; the other is that "the essence of 'heaven' is that it is where God's will is unswervingly done." Our prayers don't change God. But praying changes us by joining our wills to His.