Can you give God 1%? Can you give Him just 1% of your time in a day in prayer?  There are 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 1440 minutes in a day and if we were to give Him 1% of our time, that would be 15 minutes in a day.  

This is the 1% Challenge, maybe some of you already do this, but if not, this is the challenge, and let me explain why it is important.

We just heard in the Gospel, Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

And then we heard, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

And before that we heard in our second reading, “Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”

Oftentimes, as disciples, we think we need to be doing things for God as evidence of our fruit, feeding the poor, caring for the sick, of course good things, good fruit, but these are secondary things, actually probably more like tertiary things.  

These things that “we do” come from, are born from, our lived relationship with Jesus, of our life of prayer.  Our fruit comes after prayer.   

With this image of the vine, Jesus talks about His word remaining in us.  This is our prayer life, this is the primary thing that we need, like the branches of a vine getting nourishment from the vine, from the deep roots of faith.

A secondary thing is the growth that happens in us, from listening to His word, growing in the truth, we follow and obey His commandments, first and foremost by loving one another.  “His commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.”  To believe is to pray, Prayer is love of God, loving one another comes after.

Love of one another starts small, it starts immediate, like within our family and within our friends, but then it can branch out to all of the other corporal works of mercy, feeding the poor, caring for the sick, burying the dead, these are fruits that we can all see, but are all the end result of a longer process of growth.

And that growth starts with nourishment from God in prayer.  So can we give God 1%? Can we spend just fifteen minutes with the Word, with God every day? 

I know personally, when I don’t make the time for prayer, I notice a difference, it’s like not drinking water all day long, we just cannot afford to do that, or we will end up getting sick, getting a headache, even in the hospital, suffering from dehydration.

This goes back to Jesus’ vine analogy, to wither and die, is from a lack of nourishment.  Forget about producing any fruit, if there isn’t a life of prayer at the beginning, there won’t be any way to grow.

Jesus wants us to remain in Him, in His word in order to produce good fruit.  We need to cultivate a life of prayer, like I said, but we also need to receive the nourishment that He gives, the Bread of Life.

In the bread of life discourse, John Chapter 6 which we have been reading in our daily readings in the last couple of weeks, we heard in verse 56, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”

This is why coming to Mass and receiving Jesus in the Eucharist is so important.  It is our weekly, or daily, supernatural nourishment, in order that we remain in Him and He remains in us, physically, not just spiritually.

We wait until kids have turned seven years old, the age of reason, so they can understand this and appreciate this aspect, receiving the bread of life is not just normal food, it is supernatural food that leads us to eternity. It is Jesus Christ Himself, body, blood, soul, and divinity.  

It allows God to remain in us, and us to remain in Him, just like He asked, so we can stay attached to the vine, grow as branches, and bear much fruit from here into Heaven. It is both the consequence and the cause of our life of prayer. We don’t just unite ourselves to Jesus spiritually in prayer, but physically in the Eucharist. We need both to stay attached to the vine.

So I want to conclude with a very direct challenge to you. Commit to spending 1% of your day for the next 30 days in prayer with Scripture. That’s 15 minutes a day for 30 days. Schedule it into your day so that you know you always have time for it. You can find a resource on our website - NativityDBQ.org (and via the QR code in the bulletin) to get you started. 

But I challenge you again: Commit to 15 minutes of daily prayer with Scripture for the next 30 days. You won’t regret it, and you will be blessed by it.