AUT MALI, AUT MALE, AUT MALA

In the Sermon on the Mount, among other things, Jesus teaches the disciples how to be effective in prayer. “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” He wants them to ask with confidence, using the example of a human father responding to his son: “Or what man among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-11).

This seems easy and straightforward. And yet, sometimes we are frustrated by the response, or what seems to be a lack of response, to our request. Although prayer is infallible, we who pray are not! Saint Augustine diagnoses the problem in his famous tome, City of God. He suggests that our prayer is not heard because we ask “aut mali, aut male, aut mala,” as bad persons, or in a bad way, or for bad things.

Mali (“bad persons”). The prayer of one who lives a sinful and unrepentant life is presumptuous and offensive to God. Saint James teaches us in his epistle that “The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful” (Jas 5:16). God is not moved by the words of our prayer but rather by what he sees in our hearts and from our lives. Under the heading Jesus teaches us to pray, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that, “From the Sermon on the Mount onwards, Jesus insists on conversion of heart” (#2608). We see time and again in the Bible that God readily responds to the prayers of those who are faithful to him. If we want to be heard, we must seek to live in accord with God’s will.

Male (“badly”). Prayer must be offered in the right way and with the right attitude. Jesus says, “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words” (Mat 6:7). Our confidence must be rooted in faith. We must rely on God’s graciousness, not on our good works or pretended merit. To pray well is to pray from a place of humility, which is the foundation of all prayer (Catechism #2559). In referring to communal prayer, Saint Paul says that “everything must be done properly and in order” (1 Cor 14:40). I think this is true when we are praying privately as well. The pattern for effective prayer is given to us by Jesus in the Our Father. We are to approach God as his children and seek that his Name be exalted. We are to ask that his kingdom come among us, in our personal lives, in our Church, and in our world. We are to seek for what is most important, that is, “our daily bread.” We are to ask forgiveness on condition that we forgive others, and we are to plead that we be strengthened against temptation so that we might be victorious in the final trial. In other words, by our prayer, in one way or another, we ought to ask for perseverance in faith, hope and love.

Mala (“bad things”). Effective prayer must center on what is good. “You ask but you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (Jas 4:3). Above all, we must ask to receive the Holy Spirit, whom the Father is always pleased to give, as Jesus teaches in the Gospel of Luke: “how much more the Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” (Lk 11:13). Moreover, sometimes the very thing we want will, in fact, not be good for us. A loving Father, therefore, must withhold it from us. Only God has the wisdom and foreknowledge to know what we really need, and he has promised that “all things work for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28). For this reason, in every prayer we must ask for the Holy Spirit, who prays in us with “inexpressible groanings” (Rom 8:26).