Truth to tell, prayer, and the whole idea of praying, is one of the conundrums that has chewed through many a shoe sole as perplexed perambulators beat the streets considering the sense of praying. Here is an example of what I mean: Every day somebody’s dear old granny is in the hospital someplace with life’s precious tide ebbing away from her mortal shore. Maybe granny’s heart has lost its heretofore impeccable rhythm, or maybe she is afflicted with a ravenous cancer. Whatever the cause, granny is in a bad way and so her dependable network of family and friends has put the word out to pray for the dear soul. As it turns out, after a few days of this granny’s condition is seen to improve. Emails shoot through the friend and family tree. Messages appear that read, “The prayers are working. . . . Keep the prayers coming so granny can go home.” And so she does.

Well, that is just great. But then, some months later, granny’s ailments come back with a renewed potency. All the prayers come back too. But this time, despite all the pious orations sent-up on granny’s behalf, she departs this weary world to take up residence, we trust, in the home above.

Being a discerning reader, you understand the problems here. If prayers helped granny when she recovered her health during the first aforementioned bout of sickness, why did prayers not seem to work when she failed to get better in the latter illness? Could it be that when granny was hospitalized the first time God was going to take her but the prayers made him change his mind? But if that is the case, why didn’t God change his mind in answer to prayers the next time? Or, maybe God never changed his mind at all. Maybe God always knew he would send granny home after the first hospitalization and take her to himself after the second one. But if that is the case, what good did it do to pray at all?

Or, to complicate matters still more; maybe people prayed powerful enough prayers to make God change his mind the first time granny was sick but they did not pray hard enough the second time. If that is the case, then what could have been done to make God change his mind the second time? Would another Mass have done it? Another rosary? Maybe 10 more Masses and 100 more rosaries? Maybe if we had prayed to St. Cunegunda instead of her royal husband, Saint Henry? Or maybe if we had dug up the upside down Saint Joseph statue in the front yard and replaced it in the back yard, right side up, facing the east, with red peonies planted on top of it, maybe that would have done it, huh? And whatsmore, maybe something else altogether would have made God change his mind. But how can we know what it is?

Furthermore, if God is truth, and truth does not change, how can prayer change God’s mind? Or, if the truth does change, how can we poor mortals ever know what the truth is? Or, if prayer is absolutely a waste of time because mere mortals cannot hope to change Omniscient, Omnipotent God, why does the Holy Bible forcefully exhort us to pray? Pray, pray, pray it says. Why even today Jesus adjures us to ask. . . seek. . . knock.

Well, you can begin to see why it pays not to think too much about some things. Ah, but all this cogitation over prayer renders one more possibility that we have not yet revealed. Here it is: Friends, could it be that prayer was never intended to change God? Could it, in fact, be more truthful to say prayer is meant to change us? So then, prayer is not about pulling God’s chain as much as it is about allowing God to rattle our well insulated cages!

Viewed this way, Abraham’s negotiation with God over the fate of Sodom was not about convincing the Lord to be merciful as much as it was about convincing Abraham, and his children, of God’s mercy. The gospel friend was not adjured to ask. . . seek. . . knock so that he could glean golden goodies from heaven. Instead, he was counseled to persevere in prayer so that he could discover the reality of God’s Holy Spirit.

Many people describe a sense of emptiness and aimlessness at prayer. The reasons for their disaffection are several. But one frequently encountered mistake, bound to produce an unfruitful prayer life, is that they mistakenly see prayer as the means to make their will known to God and not as the means to make God’s will, and beauty, and truth, known to them. The difference is considerable and considerably consequential.

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Msgr. Bradley S. Offutt is Chancellor of the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph.