Prayer and change of heart

Prayer will make us leave sinning, or sinning will make us leave prayer. Such a simple formula. If one goes about doing his/her best giving time for the things of God, such as Holy Mass, prayer meetings, being together with the family or one’s brethren, then sooner or later, especially if one prays to God for the grace, the person will achieve the change for the better. This change is what is called in Greek — metanoia, or a conversion of heart.

After all, what we’re after is really a change, but for the better. What else? Christianity is not a “palabras” but a religion of grace and power. Yet like a person who needs water and opens faucets, we too can meditate on God’s word and receive the Sacraments, since these are instruments of change. If human ideas can, how much greater will the change/conversion produced by divine ideas be.

In a homily delivered in June 1968, Blessed Paul VI expressed this idea, thus: “We can imagine, then, that each of our sins, our attempts to turn our back on God, kindles in God a more intense flame of love, a desire to bring us back to himself and to his saving plan…God, in Christ, shows himself to be infinitely good…He loves us, seeks us out…He will be—so to say—delighted on the day when we return…” Let us never forget that we are God’s children, and He awaits our final return at journey’s end. (Earna Cadungog)