#12165 What’s the Purpose of Prayer If God’s Will Always Happens? - Joe Heschmeyer
Catholic Answers Live
Catholic Answers
4.8 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
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Summary
If God’s will is inevitable, why pray at all? We explore how prayer fits into God’s providence, and also tackle questions on prudential judgment, understanding papal encyclicals, and the emotional hurdles people face when approaching full conversion.
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Questions Covered:
- 06:56 – We just got confirmed this past weekend and I just want to say thank you!
- 15:16 – I’ve been praying the 7 Sorrows. One-line states something about suffering in silence. Should I not tell my husband when I’m having a bad day?
- 23:59 – What is the relationship between a prudential judgement and the justification for it? Can a bad reason undermine the judgment itself?
- 36:46 – If God’s Will will always be done, then what is the purpose of praying for things?
- 44:20 – What resources do you recommend to properly understand Papal encyclicals?
- 51:01 – How do I deal with the final hurdles to conversion?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent. |
| 0:05.2 | When Real Estate for Life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic Answers. |
| 0:11.5 | Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Hello and welcome to Catholic Answers live on this Wednesday of Easter week. |
| 0:36.4 | Happy Easter to you. |
| 0:40.7 | We get to keep saying happy Easter for a long time. |
| 0:45.6 | That's one of the nice things about being Catholic. None of the big ones are just a day. |
| 0:51.2 | The really big ones are at least eight days. So you can say Merry Christmas for a long time after Christmas. You can say Happy Easter for a long time after Easter. Lent comes to an abrupt dent, however, though, so Lent is over. I don't know why people are, it does seem to me, as Catholics, we're better at Lent than we are at the happy seasons. I don't, I've puzzled over this for years. I don't know what it is, |
| 1:13.2 | but we're better at the preparatory seasons than we are at the celebratory seasons. But we're in a |
| 1:19.5 | celebratory season now. And even with the passing of Pope Francis, it's okay to have joy in your |
| 1:25.7 | heart. It's good to have joy in your heart. I got joy in my heart because of the season and because Joe Heschmire is here for two hours, |
| 1:31.1 | have asked me anything. |
| 1:31.9 | Joe Heschmire, welcome. |
| 1:33.6 | Thanks. |
| 1:34.1 | It's good to be here. |
| 1:34.8 | Why are we better at the preparatory seasons, the ones where we give things up and do penance, |
| 1:39.5 | than we are at the celebratory seasons? |
| 1:41.6 | I want to give a counterintuitive answer to that. I think it's because we have too much luxury. |
| 1:45.8 | Oh, all right. |
| 1:48.7 | I'm going to give you the square on that one. |
| 1:51.8 | You know, I think we're, like, if we didn't live lives of excess the rest of the calendar year, |
| 1:56.9 | that's an excellent point. |
| 1:57.9 | Then Easter could be turned up to 10 without any difficulty. |
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