Transcription
Let's talk about giving your fanny pack to Jesus. Hey, I'm Father Mark Mary with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and this is Ascension Presents.
When you give something to God, like in prayer, you entrust something to God. Give it to him. Give it to him and don't take it back. Just give it to him and don't micromanage it. Just give it to him with trust. And what you will receive in return is the peace of Jesus.
What are these things? Right? We can be so concerned about finances, understandably, health, our own personal health, the health of another, um, the spiritual health of ourselves, of of a loved one, particularly like a spouse or a friend or a child, vocation. We desire to be in our vocation and we're not, and it hurts us. And we think about it and we dwell about it. We can even ruminate about it, but we also pray about it and we give it to God and we say novenas and we say rosaries and we give it to him, and then the next day we keep giving it to him.
The interior state is one of ongoing like frustration and hurt and anxiety and pain, and and there's some degree of us like giving it to him, but then we're frustrated with God and we question God. It's like, "What are you doing? Like, am I not doing enough?" We've given this thing to God, but but we haven't like really given it to God. There's still a lot of like, if you will, like self-will, self-reliance in like, "I got to fix this. I want to I want to make sure this happens, and I'm worried about it, and I got to bring." And even like the prayer can be like, "I got to do this thing perfect." The fruit of this whole thing is like frustration, anxiety, etc. And my brothers and sisters, I just don't think this is the way the Lord wants us to be praying. I just don't think this is the way the Lord wants us to to be praying.
And and you know, it's good to bounce this off people. And there are, I would say, uh, extraordinary circumstances where some sort of like very, very, very consistent prayer throughout the day for a particular intention is worthy. But if your prayer about something has this frustration, this this hurt, particularly the experience of like fear and anxiety, maybe there's another invitation to pray.
And so we're going to base this off of St. Paul's words in Philippians 4:4. It basically goes like this: "Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, rejoice. The Lord's at hand. Have no anxiety about anything. Have no anxiety about anything, but with prayer and supplication and make your needs known to God." And what happens? "And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus."
So we want to, and we're invited to pray um with prayer, supplication, thanksgiving in such a way that we receive peace. And that peace, I believe, is this: It it comes from this conviction that I've given this to God and he's got it, and because he's got it, I don't have to worry about it. In an ordinary circumstance, if there's anything again, vocation, uh, a family member, loved one, etc., um, I would invite you, probably in most cases, entrust to God once a day. Entrust to God once a day, but with this understanding, this foundation that he's got it. Like, he he's got it, and I don't have to constantly be worrying about it. Like his heart, he has like he wants he wants like your heart to be fulfilled, and he is going to guide you to the most perfect, glorified perfection of your needs in your heart. And so like, we're going to give it to him, but we're going to give it to him with trust.
I would say this though, and this is honest, like if if whenever you think about whatever this thing is, you keep going to like a panic and an anxiety and a frustration, and it becomes the only thing that's like part of your prayer life, and it and it sort of like overwhelms you and it overtakes you, maybe actually the best thing to do is to not pray about it every day and maybe try to not think about it.
Because here's the thing. When you entrust something to Jesus, like he doesn't like come back, you know, in the middle of the night and just like leave it in your room again. He doesn't like put it down and be like, "Okay, like I had it yesterday. Now you got to pick it up again today and give it to me, 'cause otherwise like I'm not going to help with this." And he certainly doesn't do that every 15 minutes or every hour. Like God is God. And if we give him something, he can hold it. Like, and actually, like we can we can we can just give it to him.
If the fruit of it is like fear, panic, it becomes the only thing that we can think about and pray about. My encouragement would probably be like to give it to him and just give it to him, and maybe you revisit it once a week at mass and and you sort of entrust it again to him, or maybe if it's really, really a crippling for like source of like pain, anxiety, maybe you try and take an extended period of time without thinking about it. But when we give something to Jesus, like we really need to give it to him and not like be like watching it constantly, right?
And the image I have is um, I was helping out with like uh, some like missionary formation, and there's there's like hundreds of missionaries there, and there would always be one missionary that had this very, very bright uh, fanny pack. And in this fanny pack was like the emergency phone and a couple like the emergency things. And so this person was on. And so if you got locked out of your room, you'd call this person. If somebody got hurt and they needed an ambulance, you called this person. Like whatever the emergency happened, like for 24 hours, like this person was on duty. And you could see like there's like a certain degree of increased sort of like vigilance. And there's there's a little there's a little increase, right, of stress, anxiety, because like they're on the clock, right? And they're not going to sleep quite as well because they're always like ready in case they get that phone call.
But what happened is this is, you know, their turn would end. They'd hand the fanny pack over to the next person, and they were off duty. It was no longer their concern. And you know what would happen? They would actually go off duty. They wouldn't be watching the next guy with like the fanny pack, making sure it's like close, making sure like they wouldn't be checking in constantly. They just like give it to him. They let it go, and they'd like move on with their life and they'd be present.
And I think this is just kind of like like a beautiful image of like, give your fanny pack to Jesus. Give your fanny pack to your heavenly Father, and like actually give it to him, and if you will, like be off the clock. And what I this is an image I believe of like receiving the peace of Christ. It's the peace of Christ which comes from knowing like he is God, and that he is almighty. He can do anything. He's supremely resourceful, right? And he's supremely good. And so you've entrusted to him. He's got it. He's on the clock, right? And you can get off the clock. You don't have to worry about it. And you can go about your day loving people, living in freedom and peace and joy and radical confidence.
And so, my brothers and sisters, I think this is a good image of, "Hey, rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again. Rejoice. Have no anxiety about anything. Get off the clock. Have no anxiety about anything with prayer and supplication, thanksgiving. Make your needs known to God." Give him the fanny pack and receive the peace of Christ and the peace of God which keeps your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. This is part of your dignity. This is part of of your your inheritance. The peace of God. So let's give it to him. Give him your fanny pack and go about joyfully.
All right friends. Thanks so much for watching. I look forward to being with you again next week. Remember, we are pilgrims on this earth. So peros poo, little by little, bomb. We're going to make it. God bless y'all.