Prayer

How far could one bargain with God? In the first reading of today’s liturgy, Abraham had courage to go from 50 to 10 (cf Gn 18:20-21,30-34) but wouldn’t go any further. Jesus in the gospel encourages us to stretch the limits because in God, we have a father (mother) and a friend. (cf Lk:11:1-13)
But I guess there’s the “hitch” – our relationship with God or our faith in him, for that matter, has not usually reached that point of maturity: we don’t usually consider him a father (mother) nor a friend. God is simply a judge – giving rewards if we “follow the commandments” or punishing if we don’t do “our homework.”
Come to think of it, the development of our prayer life is really based on how our image of God has developed or has been transformed through time. In the end, prayer is actually much more than “asking.” It goes further – it is first and foremost a relationship, an intimate conversation, a dialogue. And in the more mature dimension, it is complete identification, it is “being one” with the Beloved.
A poem by Kahlil Gibran expresses this very well:
Then a priestess said, 'Speak to us of Prayer.'
And he answered, saying: You pray in your distress and in your need;
would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space,
it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer,
she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour,
and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive.
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words.
God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
'Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.

It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.'