Planning for Prayer: Embracing the Daily Invitation

I am writing this on Tuesday. The Gospel reading for Mass today is Luke 14:15-24. In this passage, Jesus tells a story about a man hosting a great dinner. Upon dispatching a servant to call those invited to come in, one by one, they replied by giving excuses as to why they could not come. One had just purchased land and proclaimed the need to go and examine it. Another stated he had purchased five yoke of oxen and needed to inspect them. A third said that he had just gotten married and so could not come to the dinner. 

As I read this reading this morning and prayed with it, it occurred to me that each, in its own way, was a rather comical excuse. To say I had just purchased land and so needed to go look at it and thus could not honor the invitation – the land will still be there tomorrow. What is the great rush to inspect it? Inspecting the oxen – didn’t you do this before purchasing them? Who buys a car without at least checking the CARFAX report and inspecting the car? He already purchased the oxen, it is too late to return them. And just gotten married! Didn’t you know you were getting married when you accepted the invitation? Did this really just come up?

I used this as a reflection for myself. How silly are the excuses I come up with rather than spending time in prayer. Do I really need to attend to that right now, or like the land owner, will it still be there tomorrow? Whatever it is will still likely be there fifteen, twenty, or sixty minutes from now. Like inspecting the oxen, is what I need to do really that important? As I mentioned last week in the homily, isn’t it more important that I get to know my judge? If I am longing for heaven and eternal union with God, don’t I want to spend time with Him now? But for me, the third is the most challenging. If I would plan things out better, I would have all the time in the world to pray. I usually know what my day will be like, what the schedule will be. Yes, sometimes things that I haven’t planned for do come up, but for the most part I know what my day is going to look like. 

One of the great advantages of reading the daily readings is that the next day’s reading follows the previous day’s reading. For example if you follow along the daily readings, you will be reading right now a large section of Luke’s gospel. You will have recently read most of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians and now will be working on his Letter to the Philippians. You can access the daily readings that are read at Mass each day easily by going to https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading or better yet, join us for daily Mass at 8 AM in the chapel at Saint Patrick’s.

By the way, this weekend we welcome Father David Neuschwander to Saint Patrick Parish. Father David grew up in Hudson, graduated from Hudson High School, and now serves as the Vocations Director for our Diocese and as pastor for five parishes, including Hayward, Cable, New Post, Reserve, and Stone Lake. I will be providing Masses at the last three parishes. It will be my first time serving at these three churches for Sunday Masses. Our seminarian Pat Sorrells will be joining me. I look forward to exploring and being introduced to a new part of our Diocese.