1. RECIPE FOR SALVATION:

WE ALL WANT TO GET TO KNOW GOD BETTER,                                                                but how should we go about it ?

We read in the Book of Job telling God: “I have heard about you, Lord, with my own ears (but after having experienced you, after the struggle) I have seen you with my own eyes.” (Job, 42: 5 – 6)

God is not ‘something’ But ‘someone’, whom we learn about once we meet Him and experience Him.

The degree, extent, amount we get to know God depends on how much we pray, because in prayer we meet Him personally, we speak to Him and He speaks to our heart.

But God does not speak to us in prayer only, but in all occasions, happenings during the day and during our lifetime… if we know how to read the signs of the times of our personal life, and those around us, familiar, political and social. But the keyword is PRAYER.

The grace by which we manage to lead a good life depends on how much and the way we pray. After death, the reason why some condemn themselves to eternal damnation, is because they would have failed to pray to Him, they had failed to show trust in Him, because they had failed to wish what He always wished. He was always ready to hear our prayers…but they were never uttered.

When we realise the great amount of help we all need; spiritual and material, all round the world, it is no wonder that Jesus Himself told us that it is not enough praying for twenty four hours a day.

For praying we need exterior and interior peace, quiet, stillness, otherwise how can we carry on a dialogue with God Himself surrounded by the hustle and bustle of life around us. During prayer we will be feeling, experiencing God face to face, our eyes will be seeing what God’s eyes will be beholding.

The disciples of Jesus once asked Him: “Lord, teach us how to pray.” We all know what was the Lord’s reply … we were presented  with the wonderful prayer: “Our Father.”

But, as St.Augustine tells us, the ‘Our Father’ is not ‘a prayer’, but ‘a model of other prayers’, in it we find all the prayers found in the Psalter, in the Book of Psalms.

We can give a few examples; “Praise the Lord all nations” means,  “Thy Kingdom come.”   When we say, “Have Mercy on us” that means, in the Our father, “Forgive us our trespasses.”

St.Augustine goes on to say that when we pray for something which is included in the Our Father, we will be asking it in the Lord’s Name…and He will certainly grant it to us.

But, conversely, if we ask for something not included in the Our Father, there is no guarantee of it being granted. We find this in Augustines Epistle no.130.         

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