What's the best kind of prayer?

Homily

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time A2

19 July 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village

AMDG

What's the best prayer you have ever said?  

The ultimate prayer we offer is the sacrifice of the Mass.  It is the obedience to worship God the way in which He wants to be worshipped.  The command is clear.  Do this in memory of me.  Do this.  There's nothing greater than offering the sacrifice of yourself through, with and in Jesus Christ, the sacrifice that is infinitely pleasing to God, that unleashes the transformative power of the greatest love that has conquered all things.  There is nothing more powerful than the Mass.  It's ultimate.  It's the greatest prayer.

Yet is it the best?

We know the Our Father to have been given as the perfect prayer.  It's 7 perfect petitions, 3 for God and 4 for us, complete Jesus' response when asked to teach His disciples how to pray.  It's hard to beat the Our Father.  It's perfect.  Yet is it the best?

Thursday over 500 people gathered here for the rosary.  It's an incomparably beautiful prayer.  We prayed for the Koester family, especially for our 5th grader Annie Koester, who is in grave danger due to injuries suffered unjustly in a car accident Wednesday morning east of St. Louis.  Everyone felt so devastated and helpless.  So we prayed the mysteries of our faith, by which God brings the greatest good out of the most tragic circumstances, through the heart of our Blessed Mother, who gave birth to J

Didn't you sow good seed in your field?

rest of homily incomplete