November 18, 2009

Priest’s book explores ‘Why Didn’t God Answer My Prayer?’

By Roxanne King

It’s a question we’ve all heard or asked ourselves, “Why didn’t God answer my prayer?”

Father John Krenzke, chaplain to the Archdiocese of Denver’s permanent diaconate program, responds to that question in a paperback recently released by St. Walburga Press and available at Catholic goods stores now.

Father Krenzke, 78, a former Denver Catholic Register columnist, has served as a parish priest, prison chaplain, teacher and pilgrimage leader in his 50 years of priestly ministry. A resident of Denver, he is also the author of “Scriptural Way of the Cross,” a devotional which was reprinted by St. Walburga Press last year.

The title of his new book, “Why Didn’t God Answer My Prayer?” came from faithful he served on retreats who would often ask why God didn’t answer a supplication they had made in faith.

“I could not give a facile answer like ‘Maybe you didn’t have enough faith’ or ‘God said no,’” Father Krenzke said. “It was important for me to look at the Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, and see what they had to say on prayer and about God answering prayer. The book is a response to that.”

The slender volume principally explores the Gospel of St. Luke.

“There is a particular section there that is an instruction Jesus gives on prayer and in it we find why, not all the reasons, but why prayers aren’t answered,” Father Krenzke said. “There is no fault on God’s part; the fault is on our part because we do not pray as we have been instructed to pray.”

The priest stressed that the book is not actually “an answer book,” rather, he said, its premise is that “God responds to our needs as long as we follow through the teaching on prayer that Jesus gives in the Gospel.”
The book, therefore, shares the discernment process given in the Scriptures for prayer.

“Prayer is a search to do God’s will,” Father Krenzke explained, “and God’s will is that we be blessed in all the circumstances of our lives, including the very difficult ones: tragedies, disappointments and dreams unfulfilled.”
“Why Didn’t God Answer My Prayer?” includes examples of prayer requests and the procedures that were suggested that set the person on a new path. One such case is a common one: a parent frustrated that their grown child no longer practices the Catholic faith.

“A mother came to me and said that she prayed for her son to go back to Mass,” Father Krenzke recalled. “She said, ‘I have prayed and prayed and nothing has happened. Why didn’t God answer my prayer?’”

Asked by the priest to explore her motive for the plea, the woman realized she wanted her son to attend Mass so she wouldn’t feel she had failed to pass on the faith. At the priest’s suggestion she began to pray instead that her son would come to know and love Jesus Christ. She later joyfully reported back that she had changed her prayer and was seeing a change in her son.

“When children become adults they have to be responsible for their faith,” Father Krenzke said. “Parents need to pray for God’s mercy for them because they need conversion—not just to go back to Church.”

In the book, the priest also addresses models of prayer that are contrary to Gospel teaching, including one novena that claims “never to have been known to fail.”

“The prayer that’s never been known to fail,” Father Krenzke asserted, “is the Our Father.”

When novenas begin requiring steps one should take in addition to praying, they become superstition, the priest said.

“That’s nonsense,” Father Krenzke said of one novena that instructs the person to make a certain number of copies of the prayer, distribute them and publish a statement of gratitude after the prayer has been answered.

The faithful can take heart, Father Krenzke said, that if one prays according to the teaching given in the Scriptures they are assured of a blessing.

“In Luke’s Gospel, Christ says, ‘Ask and it will be given to you. Search and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you,’” he emphasized. “Now please notice that’s a promise; it’s not ‘Ask and sometimes you’ll hear. Search and maybe you will find. Knock and sometimes the door will be opened.’ They are definites. 

“You will, you will, you will,” he stressed. “Jesus’ words are very assuring and Jesus does not go back on his promises. That’s the heart of Luke’s teaching.”

Title: “Why Didn’t God Answer My Prayer?”
Author: Father John Krenzke
Publisher: St. Walburga Press, 84 pp., $7.95
Available: at Catholic goods stores or through the publisher at stwalburgapress@gmail.com or call 970-472-0612