Wednesday, December 28, 2005
hi there everybody.. yea, in address to clarice's question, many people who attended today's mass (except oliver who was sleeping) must have found what the priest said a little strange, if not wrong. i myself did. that's why after mass i went to ask jude, and what he said was that the priest was speaking in terms of relativity.. meaning that it is relatively better to pray with someone than to pray for someone. anyway, he told us to go and ask the priest if we were still unsure, so kristin, myself and some sec 3 kids (lol) went to ask the father.. and this is what he said..
he said that what he meant was that when you have the opportunity to pray with someone, it is better to do that than to tell the person that you will pray for him or her. for example, when your friend tells you that his mother is unwell in hospital, it is better to say "come, let's pray for her now" than to say "ok i will go home and pray for her." this is because in praying together, there is a certain presence of yout prayer that the other person will feel. whereas if you pray like at night before you sleep, the person may not know that you are praying for him or her (even if he or she trusts you a lot) and so this presence and connection through prayer is not established.
furthermore, and this is my personal input, as the bible so explicitly tells us, when two or three of His children are gathered in prayer, there he will always be. so praying together will further invoke the presence of god to give a stronger meaning to the whole prayer. and during the mass i was whispering to jonathan that how can the priest say that when even in the rosary prayer, we say all the "pray for us" thingies.. what i failed to realise is that mother mary, as well as all the saints and holy intercessors, are always with us. and so, when we ask them to pray for us, they are praying for us with us. geddit? lol. and so the contrast is that when we approach a person to intercede in our prayers, he or she cannot be present with us the way the holy saints can. yupp.
the priest also added that the reason why he used the phrase "life-giving" is because he wanted to make a contrast with the death the holy innocents endured. so the point here is that when we pray with someone, we can fully give life to the 'dead' aspect of that person (ie spiritually or emotionally), in contrast to the death that herod brought upon the holy innocents. when we pray for someone, however, basically the idea is that we cannot fully give this 'life' since we do not establish that connection i wrote about earlier with that person. so ya, as jude says, it is relative. of cos prayin for someone can be life-giving and all, just that we should always sieze the opportunity to pray with that someone so we may establish a divine relationship through our prayer in the sacred name of Jesus.
and here is what kristin has to say haha "basically what he said was that praying with someone gives life, bcos it gives ppl hope and stuff. but praying for the person is more of an intention so praying with the person is an active thing which is kinda like action vs intention. so actions speak louder than words!" yups.
well that's it.. hope im comprehensive enough clarice, and all with queries! =)
love,
justin
hi there everybody.. yea, in address to clarice's question, many people who attended today's mass (except oliver who was sleeping) must have found what the priest said a little strange, if not wrong. i myself did. that's why after mass i went to ask jude, and what he said was that the priest was speaking in terms of relativity.. meaning that it is relatively better to pray with someone than to pray for someone. anyway, he told us to go and ask the priest if we were still unsure, so kristin, myself and some sec 3 kids (lol) went to ask the father.. and this is what he said..
he said that what he meant was that when you have the opportunity to pray with someone, it is better to do that than to tell the person that you will pray for him or her. for example, when your friend tells you that his mother is unwell in hospital, it is better to say "come, let's pray for her now" than to say "ok i will go home and pray for her." this is because in praying together, there is a certain presence of yout prayer that the other person will feel. whereas if you pray like at night before you sleep, the person may not know that you are praying for him or her (even if he or she trusts you a lot) and so this presence and connection through prayer is not established.
furthermore, and this is my personal input, as the bible so explicitly tells us, when two or three of His children are gathered in prayer, there he will always be. so praying together will further invoke the presence of god to give a stronger meaning to the whole prayer. and during the mass i was whispering to jonathan that how can the priest say that when even in the rosary prayer, we say all the "pray for us" thingies.. what i failed to realise is that mother mary, as well as all the saints and holy intercessors, are always with us. and so, when we ask them to pray for us, they are praying for us with us. geddit? lol. and so the contrast is that when we approach a person to intercede in our prayers, he or she cannot be present with us the way the holy saints can. yupp.
the priest also added that the reason why he used the phrase "life-giving" is because he wanted to make a contrast with the death the holy innocents endured. so the point here is that when we pray with someone, we can fully give life to the 'dead' aspect of that person (ie spiritually or emotionally), in contrast to the death that herod brought upon the holy innocents. when we pray for someone, however, basically the idea is that we cannot fully give this 'life' since we do not establish that connection i wrote about earlier with that person. so ya, as jude says, it is relative. of cos prayin for someone can be life-giving and all, just that we should always sieze the opportunity to pray with that someone so we may establish a divine relationship through our prayer in the sacred name of Jesus.
and here is what kristin has to say haha "basically what he said was that praying with someone gives life, bcos it gives ppl hope and stuff. but praying for the person is more of an intention so praying with the person is an active thing which is kinda like action vs intention. so actions speak louder than words!" yups.
well that's it.. hope im comprehensive enough clarice, and all with queries! =)
love,
justin