Don’t Pray Against Yourself

It’s in your power how you look forward to Christ’s coming. He delays coming so that when he comes he will not condemn you. He hasn’t come yet, he in his heaven and you here on earth. He delays his coming; don’t you delay your decision. His coming will be hard on the hard-hearted, gentle on the devout. Consider which you are now: if you’re hard-hearted, you have the chance to become gentle; if you’re gentle, you may already rejoice that he is to come. You’re a Christian? “Yes,” you say. I believe that when you pray, you say: “Thy kingdom come” (Mt 6:10). You desire him to come whose coming you dread. Correct yourself and you won’t be praying against yourself. (EP 97[98], 9; PL 37, 1257-1258)

Rev. Joseph A. Komonchak, professor emeritus of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, is a retired priest of the Archdiocese of New York.