Praying for Trifles
While nuns don’t watch the Super Bowl, we do know that many of you will this weekend! You may have wondered: Is it okay to pray about who wins the Super Bowl? Should we? Will God listen?
The short answer is yes, it is okay to pray about who wins the Super Bowl. According to St. Augustine, it is lawful to pray for what it is lawful to desire. So if we’re praying for a particular outcome of a competition because we believe it will make us happy, then that is totally fine. (On the flipside, if you’re praying for one team to win so that the other team will lose and that annoying guy at the office will get sad, then that is uncharitable, and it would be an impious prayer.)
There is, of course, a longer, more complete answer, though. While it is okay to pray about inconsequential matters, and God loves it when we bring even small desires to Him, He really wants to give us so much more. God is both our loving Father in Heaven and the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe. As such, He wills for us to have the fullness of joy, and He has the knowledge and power to make it happen. God knows that our complete joy will come from eternal life with Him in Heaven. He even came to Earth and died for us in order to make that eternal joy in Heaven, our salvation, possible. Clearly, He will do anything possible to bring about our true good. Therefore, while small prayers are okay, and they are certainly better than no prayers, we really should dream a bit bigger.
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, prayer has two beneficial effects (besides consolation at the very act of prayer.) [ST II-II Q83 A15] One effect is that of obtaining what is being asked for. Certainly not every petition to God is directly granted. Because He is our Father and wants to give us beatitude (true happiness), He answers prayers according to what is best for that end goal. This means that when He does give us what we pray for, it is because it leads to our beatitude in some way, either by sustaining our life or by enabling us to perform acts of virtue [Q83 A6]. And on the other hand, He sometimes doesn’t give us what we pray for because He knows it isn’t really going to make us happy. With this in mind, one way to elevate our prayer is to consider what we truly need in order to live as we ought, and then ask for that. We also can admit that we don’t generally know what we truly need and should beg God for His Will to be done in our lives instead.
The other benefit of prayer comes from the nature of virtue. All acts of virtue are beneficial, since they directly bring us closer to God and gain the reward of beatitude [I-II Q114]. And, as St. Thomas points out, each prayer involves quite a few virtues. For example, charity is what prompts us to pray in the first place and determines what we pray for, since we are entreating God to grant a good thing to a certain person or group. The virtue of faith is necessary, because we need to believe in God and His ability to grant what we seek. Humility is also present, since in prayer we are acknowledging that we can’t obtain whatever it is we are seeking without God’s help. [Q83 A15] These are just a few of the many virtues involved, and they reveal to us another way to elevate prayer. Our prayer improves as each virtue that is involved increases. The more we love the person we are praying for by strongly desiring their true good, the more beneficial the prayer is. Also, as we grow in faith and humility by acknowledging God’s greatness and our neediness, prayer is enriched.
Now back to the question of the Super Bowl. Considering these two benefits of prayer in no way excludes praying about competitions you aren’t involved in. Even “trifles” can play a major role in the Master’s work of salvation. And faith is certainly involved in asking God to tip the scales in one team’s favor. However, to stop there would be truly missing out on the greatness that God invites us to ask for. God is our almighty Father who wants to give us abundant life. If we let Him, he will bring us to Heaven. So perhaps the best prayer is to imitate Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Your will be done!” That is a prayer that God will always answer. The challenge then is to be open to His response.