Petitionary Prayer

Unlike Merton (who I'm a big fan of) or Michael P., I find petitionary prayer neither the product of immature theology nor mind-boggling.  However, assuming the Notre Dame players were not simply giving thanks for the opportunity to play football on a beautiful fall day in Notre Dame, contray to Rick's suggestion, I don't read the Gospel as authority for what I suspect was the prayer of the Notre Dame players.

I talked about this in a blog post recently, in connection with Jesus' "Ask and you shall receive."  As i express in that post, my own view is that praying "let my team beat another team" is not a worthy object of prayer.

Update: However, praying (to use two examples Rick sent me via e-mail), "keep us safe" or "let us pray in a manner worthy of a young Christian athlete" seems to me an appropriate prayer for an athlete to make.