In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; God is one. Amen.

Begin by reading Romans 10:1-10, then Matthew 8:28-9:1. There are three quite distinct prayers in these readings. The first one is the prayer of the demons. They say to the Lord—because Jesus is God, therefore whatever you say to Jesus, you say to God, and whenever you talk to God, you are of course praying. And the prayer of the demons is this: “What have you to do with us? Have you come to torment us before time? Send us into the pigs!” And the Lord says, “Okay, off you go,” and they go into the pigs. The second prayer comes from the city-dwellers, the Gergesenes: “Please leave us,” they say.” And what does the Lord do? He says, “Okay,” and he gets into the boat, and he leaves them. And these two groups show what their heart’s desire is, what their real, deep-felt prayer to God is. The one: “Send us to the pigs”; the other: “Leave us.” The one wants to get even worse, and the other one just wants to be left without God.

And then we have the third prayer, and this is the prayer of St. Paul that we read about in Romans 10:1-10, and the whole of that reading is one great big prayer. Doesn’t look like it to begin with, but this is the prayer of St. Paul. Remember, he calls it his heart’s desire and prayer, that they may be saved, enlightened, know God’s righteousness, submit to God’s righteousness, have faith, be justified, to live by God’s righteousness, to have the word on their lips and in their heart, to confess that Jesus is Lord, to believe in him in their hearts, to know him to be risen from the dead, and be saved. That is the prayer of St. Paul for his fellow countrymen.

What a distinction between “Send us to the pigs,” “Leave us alone,” and all those wonderful things that St. Paul is praying for for others. He calls it his heart’s desire. So it’s worthwhile asking yourself: What is your heart’s desire? What does your prayer tell us about you? Do you ask to be left alone, to carry on your life in your own sweet way with your own ambitions, with your own acquisitiveness, with your own thoughts and your own desires? Or do you ask to be sent to the pigs? And really what you want are things that are going to destroy the Gospel? Wealth and power and fame. Is that what you want? The Lord will say, “Okay, there you go. Go and have it.”

Or is your prayer the mirror image of that one of St. Paul? By all means, pray it for others, but pray it for yourself. Say: Enlighten me, give me faith, justify me, open me to your righteousness, enter my mouth and my heart. Lord Jesus, Son of God, risen from the dead, I am yours—save me, have mercy upon me, the sinner.

Because, really, those are the three sorts of prayer you can have. The first one: I want to go to the pigs. The second one: I want to carry on as I am. And the third one is: Save me, O Lord. The choice is absolutely yours, and that choice will show God what your heart’s desire really is. So you can join the demons, the Gergasenes, or St. Paul. Your prayers, God bless you. Amen.