From the Principal's Desk 3.3

Dear Parents,

From the time we are very young we are encouraged to pray.  We pray for sunny days, and game winning plays, we pray for healing and jobs, we pray for good grades and for our wishes to come true.  If you are like the vast majority of the world, most of these prayers do not come true, or they come true as often as they don’t.  We are left wondering what prayer is good for.  

It works like this,  God made the world to run on certain rules He ordained.  The mechanism He used to do this remains uncertain, that He did it is clear.   These rules or laws of nature run everything in the universe, they govern the movements of planets, the beat of a butterfly’s wings and the growth of plants.   For us humans, there exists an additional gift, the gift of free will.   We freely choose our actions and the consequences that flow from them, and we are affected by the actions of others.  In all of this God, having established the rules, allows us to interact and to reap the reward of such things.  Ordinarily, God allows us to do the work we can do and reserves for Himself the work we cannot do.  To illustrate, God can forgive sins, we cannot, no matter how hard we try.  On the other hand, I can feed my family dinner tonight, and I will.  It will be myself, (and my wife), who will prepare and serve the food and my children who will clean up the kitchen afterward.  No angels will do it for us, the dishes miraculously prepared and then cleaned.  We have to do it ourselves or it doesn’t get done.  No amount of prayer is likely to change that.   

This does not mean God is silent.  Actually God routinely inspires us; he does not force our hand, instead He gives us a nudge in the right direction.  If we listen to that prompting, we and others are blessed.  If we do not listen, we and others miss the blessing.  In this way we see God’s hand at work and the answer to prayer.  When we look at the hungry and wonder why God does not feed them, it is really ourselves ( corporately) who do not feed them.  God has left it to us to manage the world to feed the hungry, to care for the sick, to educate the ignorant and it is up to us to do it, but not alone.
When we pray for our team to win, or to pick the winning lottery numbers, God seldom intervenes; allowing natural rules to reign.  Yet God will grant us peace, patience and wisdom, kindness, generosity and love.   These will help and if I have practiced and am genuinely skilled, I may win.  The same thing happens with school work.  As a student I often prayed for good grades and found out if I listened to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and studied, I would do well.  If I didn’t and relied on my native wit and intellect, the results were often less than hoped for.  So when your students are doing your schoolwork,  encourage them to pray,  to ask God for wisdom and diligence, and to thank Him for the gift of intellect and life itself, and then suggest they work really hard to use their gifts well.  Jesus will not take the test for them, or write their  paper;  He will inspire and strengthen  all of us to do well…if we ask.         

Timothy Gallic
Principal, Holy Family High School