I don’t usually experience divine revelation when I pray. I certainly feel God’s presence and his guiding hand – especially when I’m wrestling with an important decision – but I haven’t encountered any voices from burning bushes.
Most of my prayer is quieter than that – sometimes dry, sometimes routine, often distracted. Then there are moments when the Holy Spirit breaks through in ways that are truly profound.
Not long ago, while praying in the Our Lady of Czestochowa Chapel at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., I had one of those moments. My prayer felt unfocused and mechanical, a series of familiar motions – until, almost suddenly, it hit me.
What I was really asking from God was help with two small but difficult words: yes and no.
“Lord,” I prayed, “help me to say yes when I want to say no. Help me to say no when I want to say yes.”
That was it.
Help me say yes to the homeless men and women who ask for help as I walk to lunch in downtown Baltimore – when my instinct is to look away or hurry past.
Help me say yes to my 6-year-old daughter at the end of a long workday when she asks for one more piggyback ride up the stairs – even though we’ve already gone up and down five times.
Help me say yes to washing the mountain of dishes or folding the laundry when all I want is to crash on the couch.
Then came the other side.
Help me say no to gossip when conversation turns unkind and I want to join in.
Help me say no to new projects that take time away from prayer and family.
Help me say no to irritation – to the sharp reply that feels so justified in the moment – and to the need to win an argument.
In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus tells us to let our “yes” mean “yes” and our “no” mean “no,” warning that anything more is from the evil one. Scripture scholars explain that he was condemning the misuse of oaths and calling his followers to live in truth. But I couldn’t help thinking that he was also calling us to something deeper: an integrity of heart.
It’s one thing to force ourselves to say yes or no. It’s another to mean it and align our will with what is true, good and beautiful.
When St. John Paul II visited Baltimore in 1995, he told a packed Oriole Park at Camden Yards that freedom “consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” Those words felt abstract to me years ago, but now they feel practical.
Freedom isn’t indulging every impulse and it’s not comfort or ease. It’s the ability to choose what is good, even when it costs us something.
I recently read in Holy Cross Father Nate Wills’ wonderful book, “Pray Like a Champion Today: Sacred Stories from the Sidelines of Notre Dame Football,” that members of the Notre Dame football team wear practice T-shirts emblazoned with two words: “Choose Hard.”
The challenge is to approach every decision by taking the more difficult route – the weight room over the recliner and the classroom over binge-watching shows.
Christian discipleship often looks like that. The harder choice is usually the more loving one – and the freer one.
That’s what I find myself praying for these days. Maybe that’s what the Christian life comes down to – learning, with God’s grace, to choose hard. To say the right yes and the right no – and to mean it.
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