Some Christians question the value of petitionary prayer. You know, asking God for things. They frown on praying for worldly requests like finding a job and safe travel. They urge prayer only for spiritual matters such as patience, trust, and perseverance.
Karl Rahner (1904-1984) offered a vigorous defense of petitionary prayer. Jesus doesn’t pray in the Garden of Gethsemane for ethereal requests; he petitions the Father for his mortal life to be spared even as he entrusts his future to God. He teaches in the Lord’s Prayer to ask boldly for daily bread, forgiveness of enemies and deliverance from temptation. Karl reminds his readers that Jesus’ petition, “Thy will be done” precedes all other requests in the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus began the prayer by letting go of desired results and modeling the refusal to make an idol out of what we want.
Karl Rahner was arguably the preeminent Catholic theologian of the twentieth century. He taught theology and philosophy at leading German universities for fifty years and was a central figure in Vatican Council II. Rarely do we encounter someone so heady about theology who was also so accomplished as a devotional writer. He was equally skilled at teaching theology to graduate students as he was in leading prayer retreats for his home congregation in Munich. Karl lived by the conviction that God is both the transcendent mystery who rules the universe and intimate Presence who sustains and guides us.
Today’s prayer is taken from Prayer for a Lifetime, a collection writings and prayers from various periods of Karl’s life: