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All Issues > Volume 31, Issue 3

<< Saturday, May 2, 2015 >>

St. Athanasius

Acts 13:44-52
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Psalm 98:1-4

John 14:7-14
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PRAYING IN HIS NAME

"Anything you ask Me in My name I will do." —John 14:14

If we believe in Jesus, we will do greater works than He did because of the power of prayer which He has given us (Jn 14:12-13). Jesus promised: "Whatever you ask in My name I will do, so as to glorify the Father in the Son. Anything you ask Me in My name I will do" (Jn 14:13-14). If Jesus puts His name on our prayer, then the prayer is answered as we have requested. In other words, if we pray according to His will, not ours, what we pray is what will happen. If we seek first the kingdom of God, everything will be given us besides (Mt 6:33).

If we pray to be healed from cancer, will Jesus put His name on this prayer and will we be healed? Although the Lord usually wants us to be healed, and was even wounded so that we may be healed (1 Pt 2:24), healing is not the Lord's highest priority. Therefore, the Lord may or may not put His name on our prayer to be healed from cancer. However, if we prayed to have the health necessary to witness for Him and to build His kingdom, then the Lord would put His name on that prayer. We may then be healed, or we would be able to do what the Lord wants us to do, even if we're not healed. When we pray for Jesus' prayers to be answered, then that prayer is answered. Pray in Jesus' name.

Prayer: Father, teach me to pray (see Lk 11:1) by giving me the heart and mind of Jesus (see 1 Cor 2:16).

Promise: "Thus the word of the Lord was carried throughout that area." —Acts 13:49

Praise: St. Athanasius almost single-handedly rescued the Church from the heresy of Arianism, which maintained that Jesus was not divine. He believed so strongly that Jesus was God that he was exiled six times during his life.

Prayer for the Unborn

Heavenly Father, in Your love for us, protect against the wickedness of the devil, those helpless little ones to whom You have given the gift of life.

Touch with pity the hearts of those women pregnant in our world today who are not thinking of motherhood.

Help them to see that the child they carry is made in Your image - as well as theirs - made for eternal life.

Dispel their fear and selfishness and give them true womanly hearts to love their babies and give them birth and all the needed care that a mother can give.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, Your Son, Our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever.

Amen.