This week's first reading is from The Book of Isaiah, which speaks of God's "house of prayer." What is a house of prayer? Naturally, what first comes to mind is the physical church that we come to participate in weekly masses. We come to this place in good times, like baptisms and weddings, and in not-so-good times, like funerals. We also sometimes come to churches to pray when a mass is not going on when things are not so good. I will never forget going to St. Joseph's Cathedral after 9/11. Msgr Campbell opened the church to all to come and pray. There was standing room only. It was eerily quiet; no mass was going on, so all you heard was the whispering of prayer and crying. I remember looking around and seeing that many of those in prayer were not Catholic, let alone Christian.
Why would non-Catholics come to pray at a Catholic cathedral? Pope Benedict XVI pointed out that, as humans, we are naturally called to prayer. In 2011, he reminded us that the ancient Egyptians, the pagan Romans, and even the Greek tragedies show us many examples of man praying to a greater being.
Why is this so? Why is this built into our humanity? Pope Benedict explained this in his beautiful words:
“The human being of all times prays because he cannot fail to wonder about the meaning of life, which remains obscure and discomforting if it is not put into relation to the mystery of God and his plan for the world. Human life is a fabric woven of good and evil, of undeserved suffering and of joy and beauty that spontaneously and irresistibly impel us to ask God for that light and that inner strength which support us on earth and reveal a hope beyond the boundaries of death.”
So, what does this mean? It means that each one of us is a "house of prayer." As that house, we need not pray in a particular place. We need not have a specific need. We need not to necessarily be thankful (although we should!). What we need to do is be in continuous communication with God as we live our lives.