The story is told of a monk who wanted to visit friends in another town. He wore his Franciscan habit and sandals and went on his way. As he was walking, he hit his toe on a rock in the middle of the road. He sat down for a few minutes because his toe was hurting a lot. As he was sitting, he began to think of how late he was going to be to see his friends. The rock in the middle of the road grew bigger. Then he thought of what his friends were thinking about him because he was going to be late. The rock grew bigger. Then he became angry that his friends would not understand him. It was not his fault that he was going to be late. The rock got so big that it became a mountain that he could not cross.

At this moment a lady came down the road and sat to talk to the monk. He began to tell her all that he was thinking. Gradually the mountain began to shrink to the stone that was originally there. Then the lady got up picked up the rock from the middle of the road and threw it away. The monk was able to start walking again. That lady’s name was Prayer.

In the Gospel today we hear of Jesus being so busy performing miracles. He still went way to pray. Prayer is the greatest miracle that Jesus gives us each day.

Prayer is not just saying words. It is uniting ourselves to God. Prayer is the talking to the One who loves us so much and we try to love. Prayer shows us what our lives are really about.

The first reading from the Book of Job talks about how routine our life can become. We do the same thing all the time. Sometimes we are so upset with something that we can’t even sleep.

Sometimes we can be so overwhelmed. The miracle of prayer is that we can see beyond what we can hear and touch and see that God is working in our lives. Prayer helps us to see that God is there.