{"id":1559,"date":"2022-04-13T08:39:01","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T12:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1559"},"modified":"2022-04-13T08:39:39","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T12:39:39","slug":"hall-of-fame-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/13\/hall-of-fame-prayers\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall of Fame Prayers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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For the four weeks leading up to and going beyond Easter, we’re looking at the life of Peter.  Because he\u2019s so often at the center of both the brightest and darkest moments in the Gospels, he has always been a source of hope and inspiration for those endeavoring to follow Jesus.<\/em>


Mike Ditka is one of the most famous tough guys in NFL history.
 
After being drafted by the Chicago Bears in 1961, he helped revolutionize professional football.  Instead of merely throwing some mean blocks \u2013 the classic job assignment for tight ends \u2013 Ditka became a pass-catching, touchdown-scoring machine.  After finishing his career as a Dallas Cowboy, he was welcomed back to Chicago as head coach.  With his swept-back hair and aviator sunglasses, Ditka became an iconic member of the 1985 championship team.   His ranting, raving, clipboard-throwing, gum-chewing (he usually chomped an entire pack at once) style of generalship was a perfect fit for \u201cDa Bears.\u201d
 
No one was surprised when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988.
 
People were<\/em> surprised, however, when Mike Ditka got religion.   
 
During a stint as an assistant coach under the stoic Tom Landry of the Cowboys, Ditka \u2013 a famous late-night carouser \u2013 decided to give Jesus a try.  As journalist Rich Cohen recalls, \u201cHe was a believer, yet there was always something odd about his speeches and homilies\u2026 When he went for the spiritual, he came off like a big man in a tiny coat.\u201d
 
Before a game, Ditka would summon his Bears players and take a knee.  Here\u2019s one of his actual prayers:
 
\u201cHeavenly Father, we\u2019re grateful for the opportunity and we thank you for the talents you have given us \u2013 the chance to prove that we are the very best.  Father, we ask you to give us the courage and the commitment to use these talents to the best of our ability so that we may give the glory back to you.  Father, we ask that you may protect all the players in the game so that they may play the game free from injury. 
 
\u201cWe pray, as always, in the name of Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord, Amen.  Now let\u2019s go kick ass.<\/em>\u201d
 
If you check out Ditka\u2019s Hall of Fame webpage, you\u2019ll find a gallery of pictures, his stats as a player and coach, and a link to his enshrinement speech at Canton.  What you won\u2019t find are any official Mike Ditka rump-kicking prayers.  Those will have to live on in the memories of his players. 
 
There was one Hall of Fame prayer during the first Holy Week, however.  It was an anguished request uttered by Jesus himself in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his death.  \u201cIf it\u2019s possible, Father, let this cup pass from me.  Yet not my will, but your will be done.\u201d 
 
Gethsemane<\/em> means \u201colive press.\u201d  The place where Jesus prayed was apparently a commercial olive orchard.  He wrestled with his Father in the full awareness that his life would soon be crushed under the excruciating (\u201cout-of-the-cross\u201d) pressure of bearing the whole world\u2019s sin.
 
Others had come to the garden to pray, too.  Jesus had personally recruited them.  He had asked the select trio of Peter, James and John to offer their prayers just a few steps away from him, providing the priceless gift of solidarity and support. 
 
Instead, they fell asleep.   
 
Peter\u2019s worst moment \u2013 saying aloud three times that he didn\u2019t even know who Jesus was \u2013 would come the next day.  But this particular debacle, this failure of friendship, seems to have broken Jesus\u2019 heart.  \u201cCouldn\u2019t you stick it out with me for one hour?\u201d he asked.  Then he turned a very painful moment into a teaching moment: \u201cWatch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak\u201d (Matthew 26:41).
 
In his Bible paraphrase called The Message<\/em>, Eugene Peterson offers this memorable rendering of the same verse:
 
\u201cStay alert; be in prayer so you don\u2019t wander into temptation without even knowing you\u2019re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there\u2019s another part that\u2019s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.\u201d
 
In 1977 the Catholic scholar Hans Kung wrote an exquisitely detailed book called On Being a Christian.  <\/em>It is 702 pages long.  The index references almost every conceivable subject in the average spiritual life. 

Except prayer.<\/em>  When some of his colleagues gently pointed out to Kung that he had written an entire book on having a relationship with God but had neglected to mention prayer, he was mortified.  \u201cI was up against my publisher\u2019s deadline.  I was in a hurry.  I forgot.\u201d
 
Which rings true for all too many of us. 
 
We want to pray.  But life is very busy.  We\u2019re in a hurry.  And we\u2019re exhausted.  When we finally find time, we also may fall asleep.  And we wake up feeling like Peter in Gethsemane.  It seems certain that if there\u2019s a Hall of Fame for drawing close to God during all life\u2019s moments, none of us is going to be inducted into it. 
 
What can we do?  Should we go to a weekend prayer retreat?  Make stronger promises, and really mean them this time?  Buy a book that will help us get started?
 
The late Franciscan monk and lifelong recovering alcoholic Brennan Manning provided this wonderful advice: 

\u201cPray as you can, not as you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/em>
 
In other words, just talk to God.  You don\u2019t have to pray like Billy Graham or Mike Ditka.  Just pray like you<\/em>. 
 
What we know for sure is that your Father in heaven will be hanging onto every word.

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For the four weeks leading up to and going beyond Easter, we’re looking at the life of Peter.  Because he\u2019s so often at the center of both the brightest and darkest moments in the Gospels, he has always been a source of hope and inspiration for those endeavoring to follow Jesus. Mike Ditka is one of the most famous tough… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39,421,179],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-failure","tag-peter","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1562,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}