May: Day 26: Holy Apostle Carpos

May: Day 26:
Holy Apostle Carpos
 
(Reasons Why Our Prayers Are Not Always Heard By God)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Apostle Carpos, celebrated today, was one of the 70 Apostles. One day he asked God to punish two Christian sinners for living carelessly. Suddenly he saw a deep abyss, on the edge of which stood the two people for whose punishment he had prayed. At that moment the Lord appeared and said to him: "Do you want these people to perish?" He joyfully answered that this was what he was praying for.

But the Lord said to him: “Beat Me, torment Me again, crucify Me, I am ready to endure everything, but I cannot endure the destruction of sinners.” Thus the Lord moderated the zeal of the Apostle Carpos. Didn’t He stop the Apostle James and John in the same way, who wanted to destroy the Samaritan village for refusing to accept the Lord? He said to them: “The Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:52–58).

A true Christian should ask God not to send disasters to sinners, but to enlighten them and guide them on the path of truth.

II. This incident in the life of Holy Apostle Carpos gives us, brethren, a reason to talk with you about “the reasons why our prayers are not always heard by God,” because they are not always pleasing to Him, as, for example, the prayer of the Holy Apostle Carpos for the destruction of sinners was not pleasing to Him.

“You ask and do not receive,” says the Holy Apostle, “because you ask wickedly” (James 4:3).

When and why does this happen?

a) We ask wickedly, first of all, when we ask not as the Lord Himself commanded us to ask. According to His promise, only that prayer is effective and accompanied by good fruits which is quickened by a living, firm and persistent faith: "Whatever you shall ask of the Father, believing, you shall receive.” That prayer which is assisted by strong love for God and our neighbor, for only “all things work together for good to them that love God,” that prayer which proceeds from a heart entirely and completely devoted to God, “and trusting in Him alone,” when, that is, praying to the heavenly Father, we, following the example of His Son Himself, commit ourselves and our prayers entirely and unwaveringly to His all-holy will, believing with all our hearts that only that is truly useful and necessary for us which His highest wisdom and goodness finds so. When, on the contrary, our faith wavers; when our heart is not right before God, divided between Him and the world; when with our lips we turn to God, asking for His help, but with our hearts we trust in human strength and help; when, turning to God with prayer, we say with our lips that we trust in Him alone and expect everything from Him, but with our hearts we trust more in earthly treasures and acquisitions, in earthly connections and relationships with people: then, with such duplicity, with such wavering of our mind and heart, what power can our prayer have? Concerning those weak in faith and devotion to God, who waver and fluctuate, the Lord Himself speaks through the Prophet, saying: "These people come near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me; they worship Me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules" (Isaiah 29:13). Therefore, "let us ask with faith, without doubting; for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind; that person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord" (James 1:6-7).

b) We ask wickedly, secondly, when the very object of our petitions is contrary to the will of God. The Holy Faith requires that we pray only for what the Lord Himself has taught us to pray for and what the Holy Church teaches us to pray for; that we ask of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother only what is in accordance with His divine will, and not what our self-love and self-indulgence demand. Our petition is pure, holy and pleasing to God only when we ask for ourselves what is pleasing to God, what serves for the good and salvation of our souls and for the salvation and not the destruction of the souls of our neighbors, even if they are our enemies; otherwise, our very prayer will be a sin for us.

Thus, the Holy Church teaches us first of all to ask the Lord for “good and useful things for our souls.” What if we, forgetting about our soul, ask for what pleases only the whims of the flesh, what feeds its passions, what clearly serves to the detriment of our soul?

We are commanded to ask for ourselves only our "daily bread," that is, what is necessary to support our life. What if, not being content with what the love of God gives us and what is sufficient to satisfy the essential needs of our life, we began to ask for satisfaction for our insatiable desire for luxury, our vanity and pride, the endless whims of our spoiled taste?

The Lord commanded us that when we begin to pray, we should “forgive our neighbors from the heart” for all their sins against us, and try to make peace with those whom we have offended by word or deed. What if we pray without driving out of our hearts malice toward our neighbor, envy and hatred for him, without making peace with our brothers, without pacifying our spirit? Often, simple people light a candle before an icon and pray in church so that the Lord would send misfortune to an enemy, but some are so cruel that in their prayers they ask God for the death of a person who has caused them an insignificant insult. Could this foolish and sinful prayer not turn on the head of the petitioner himself!?

We are commanded to say in prayer to the Heavenly Father: "Thy will be done!" What if we began to pray and ask that "everything be done according to our will" and desire, according to our desires and views, according to our assumptions and calculations. All such prayers, as contrary to the will of God, are clearly offensive to the Lord and His most pure Mother, worthy of His wrath, and not mercy; to such prayers the Lord will say to us: "Depart from Me, I do not know you!"

c) Those who ask wickedly, finally, are especially those who, drowning in sins, neglect repentance and the correction of their lives. Can a criminal son, who has rejected his parents, neglected their love, does not submit to their authority, and does not obey their will, expect signs of love and favor from his father and mother? So can a sinner who forgets his Heavenly Father, despises His greatness and holiness, fearlessly transgresses His all-holy will, does not fulfill His holy and life-giving commandments, be pleasing before His face, turn to Him with prayer, expect gifts of love and goodness from Him? Can the most pure Mother of the Lord Herself intercede and pray for such an unrepentant sinner? Of course not. Therefore, my brethren, the prayer that is truly pleasing to God and fruitful for us is inseparable from true repentance. The Ninevites repented and cried out to the Lord in sackcloth and ashes, and the Lord had mercy on them and turned His wrath away from them, and Nineveh, already doomed to destruction, remained whole and unharmed. The sinful woman mentioned in the Gospel repented and washed Jesus' feet with tears, and the Lord said of her: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much." So every truly repentant sinner will be heard by the all-merciful Heavenly Father. God loves the righteous "and will hear their prayer;" but He also accepts repentant sinners "and will not disdain their prayer." Amen.  

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.