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Understanding the Prayer of Pope Francis At Bedtime: “Lord, If You Want, You Can Purify Me”

Why does it say, “if You want”? Does that mean that God, sometimes, ‘does not want’, even what you ask from Him is good for you?

July 15, 2016 Mary Kris I. Figueroa Blog

Pope Francis invites all of us at home to pray his prayer at bedtime, which he has shared recently. By sharing with us what he prays before he sleeps, we see a glimpse of Pope Francis’ “softer side” if you could call it like that, or a bit of his personal life. I’m a Pope Francis fangirl, and to the other fans like me, that’s nice to know! More than that though, for those of us who want our prayers to be heard by God more effectively, we like tuning in to these topics and copy it for ourselves. Because it’s from His Holiness himself, what prayer could be more ‘effective’?

“Lord, if you want, you can purify me.”

(video from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxyEW8KegTA )

That’s a very short prayer, that he actually says we can pray this at home, because it’s a one-liner that’s so easy to remember, anytime… But there is much more to it. It’s a very meaningful one. And it’s as if the totality of what you want to tell God about your whole day and before you go to sleep.

But you might wonder though, how come it says, “IF YOU WANT, You can purify me.” Why is it “if you want,” when you’re asking to be purified? And to be purified, or cleansed is something that’s always good for you. Does it mean that there can be times that God ‘DOES NOT WANT’ to purify me?

Saying “IF YOU WANT” means that the happening of a particular something DEPENDS on God. It’s depending on if He wishes it or not. So in other words, it needs His permission. Of course He wants you to be purified and become good, but it is according to Him whether He already wants to help you, or not yet. And this might lead you to another question: ‘Do I need God to be purified? Isn’t that if I want to change something in myself, purify my venial or mortal sins, habits, demeanor, behavior, and conduct, it’s only done by myself alone – in other words, my own willpower?’

The reason is that, along with your will, you need the grace of God in order to get or achieve something. Contrary to the beliefs of other ‘Christian’ sects or cults out there, you don’t receive grace just by mere saying that ‘Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior,’ nor by solely believing on grace itself. We Catholics are taught by our Church doctrine that grace is earned and obtained by hardwork. It’s like we need to please God first before He gives particular graces to you.

Grace is defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. (CCC 46)
The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification: (CCC 48)
Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church. There are sacramental graces, gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces, also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning “favor,” “gratuitous gift,” “benefit.” (CCC 53)

All the truly good things, that is, the ones, which benefit your soul, like repentance, conversion, being able to stop your old sins, frequent receiving of the Sacraments, turning back to the Church, still depend on God.

Without God’s help, even our intention or desire is good, we would not able to achieve or get it. This explains why many people find it hard to stop their sins. A lot of people also say ‘I promise to go to Mass every week. I promise to pray the Rosary everyday. I promise to change myself from being a bad guy, to a good person, etcetera.’ But many of them still fail. That’s because they don’t have the grace of God to do it. Here are the reasons why:

1. You are not in the “state of grace”
Even you have this profound desire to get purified by God, but you are not in the state of grace, you won’t be able to do it. You are not in the state of grace if you have unconfessed mortal sins, or receiving the Holy Communion without confessing your mortal sin. Mortal sins prevent us from the receiving God’s graces. If we have an on-going mortal sin with us, the blessings from God are blocked. As we know, mortal sins are only forgiven through the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. This must also be accompanied by true contrition of the heart, sorrows and repentance from the sins we committed against other people and God. And importantly, we stopped the sins we had confessed. For example, you confess that you committed adultery by living in with a partner outside of marriage, after you confess the sins, you must also stop living together in one roof, and cut-off the sexual relationship between you. If not, you’re still not considered as being in the state of grace.

2. You have not caught God’s attention yet
Probably you’re very much busy with your worldly affairs. You have this irritating behavior or moodiness that you’d like to stop. Since you don’t have any mortal sin, accurately goes to Mass, and prays a lot, you’re technically blameless. But you are very materialistic, and your job, luxurious clothes, latest gadgets, cool items, delicious food from that restaurant, regular hangouts with your peers, what selfies or pictures to brag to my friends are constantly on your mind, that even you are denial of it, your love for God seems just similar to how much you are loving the things of this world. Even you want to change some of the things about yourself in order to be pleasing to God’s eyes, it would really be hard for you to do it. God thinks you don’t need Him yet as much as you thought so you do, that His focus is still not on you. He is still not impressed on what you do, to the point that He finally wants to help you.

3. You still need to learn your lesson
This is sometimes painful and harder to understand. We think we have done everything right so far, but still, you struggle to have the grace to do many good things like stopping your sins, or praying enough everyday. Only the wisdom of God can comprehend this. So while we can ask, we can’t overly complain. It’s possible that we need to learn our life lesson more from our mistakes, or from what’s going on. You must try to find out what He’s making you realize.

Personally, I think the bottomline of what Pope Francis means with his prayer is “Lord, YOUR WILL BE DONE.” Even though so many things in your life are painful (Believe me, I had a large part of my share here), these issues must not stop us asking God to permit us to receiving His grace, to help us obtain His blessings to get out of these troubled situations, so that we may be able to do good that will aid us in earning our salvation. Many times as well, the grace of God to purify us is masked in our daily instances, and even our problems. But you know that your prayers of getting purified are answered when you feel that in the middle of those challenges, there is God’s grace that is helping you change and correct yourself. Another signal that the grace of God has reached you when something unpleasant to Him about yourself you were not aware of before is revealed, and you’re able to change them.

Let us pray that God purify all our intentions and deeds.

Mary Kris I. Figueroa
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782 Comments on Understanding the Prayer of Pope Francis At Bedtime: “Lord, If You Want, You Can Purify Me”

  441. Thank you LORD i learn something today what is important in order to please YOU for the graces that you’ve given me thank you for knowing YOU JESUS CHRIST it is not enough by just praying it should be earned and obtained by hardwork. Amen Amen Amen.

    Reply

  525. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lorf and savior Jesus Christ 2 Peter 3:18 and ripen to spiritual maturity. Purification is our obligation to attain. God cannot just bestow it to you and me. We have to earn it

    Reply

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