Does God change his mind?

The greatest fruit of prayer is that we stay and learn to remain in God’s presence.

The following homily was preached to the student brothers during Compline. You can listen here or read below:

Reading: Matthew 7:7-12

One day in Italy, while I was buying some cakes for my brethren, a man came up to me and asked: “What is the point of praying? Do you really believe that God listens? Do you really believe that He needs our prayers?” And instinctively I replied: “It is not He who needs our prayers, but rather we who need them.”

And yet, those objections can seem reasonable. If God is almighty, eternal, and unchanging, what is the point of asking Him for anything? Do we imagine that our prayer can make Him change His mind?

And so, even some Christians have started thinking that asking God for something in prayer is naïve, childish, and that the true prayer of those who have reached a mature faith is only the prayer of thanksgiving or praise.

But this is not what Jesus tells us in the Gospel today. He says clearly: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” If we, with all our limitations, contradictions and sins, are capable of giving good things, how much more will our Father in heaven give what is truly good to those who ask Him.

So how do we answer those objections?

The saints can help us. Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us that we pray not to make our needs or desires known to God, as if He did not already know them, but so that we ourselves may be reminded of the necessity of having recourse to God’s help in these matters.

Prayer, then, is an act of faith, but also an act of humility. It is the moment in which we stop pretending to be self sufficient and rediscover that we are children who depend on the Father.

And Saint Gregory the Great says that: we do not pray in order to change God’s plan, but “that by asking, we may deserve to receive what He has prepared from all eternity to give us.”

From all eternity, God has already thought of the gifts He wants to give us. Prayer then is the door through which we freely enter into that eternal plan of love.

Still, we may feel discouraged when our prayers do not seem to be answered, when we ask for something good, something important, and nothing happens. In those moments it is painful. But then we must remember that the greatest fruit of prayer is not always what we ask for.

The greatest fruit of prayer is that we stay and learn to remain in God’s presence. The greatest fruits of prayer are the spiritual ones: the growth of our faith in the Father, our hope for eternal life, and our charity towards God and our neighbour. The greatest fruit of prayer is that we rediscover who we are: not masters of our lives, but children who need the Father, children who need His grace and His forgiveness.

And then even the prayer of petition is no longer just a way of obtaining something. It becomes a way of staying with Someone.

In this Lent, may the Lord give us a humble heart, a heart that is not selfsufficient, a heart that is not afraid to ask for forgiveness, a heart that rises again after every fall and turns back to Him with trust.