17th.
Sunday (Year C)
(Genesis
18:20-32; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13)
People of God, our first reading told of Abraham’s powerful
intercession with God on behalf of his nephew Lot who had gone to live in the
sinful city of Sodom. But it’s significance for Christians is much greater than
that, because it enables us to have some appreciation of the infinite power and
supreme efficacy of Jesus’ intercession on our behalf: prayer which He makes, without
let, for us, on our behalf, in
heaven where He is seated at the right hand of the Father in glory.
However, we must also be aware of the prayer He wants to
make with us on our behalf when we, though ‘not knowing how to pray as we should’, offer up -- with the assistance
of His Holy Spirit -- our earthly hopes and fears, secret sighs and sufferings,
contrite hearts and heavenly longings, to be transformed by the same Spirit, into
prayer that Jesus Himself, in heaven, can take up and offer with us and for
us , to the Father.
All this Jesus hints at when, at their humble request, He teaches His disciples how they should pray when
addressing the Father in heaven.
Now, St. Paul pointed to the glorious climax of this saving
power of Jesus’ intercession on our behalf by telling us that, through Jesus’
offering of Himself to the Father:
You, being dead in your
trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together
with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.
Dear People of God, through the example of Abraham and His
own parables, Jesus wants His disciples to have both perseverance and confidence
in their prayer, made in spirit and in truth, in the name of Jesus, and under
the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit.
I say to you, ask, and it
will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to
you: for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who
knocks it will be opened.
Today, of course, Catholics are often surrounded and alas, sometimes
influenced by, free-thinking, loose
talking, self-righteous, people, who assert that these words in our Gospel proclamation
are too good to be true:
Everyone who asks
receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
What basis could Jesus have for making such a promise?
To help them understand, the Gospel account continues with
a comparison possibly drawn from daily experience:
If a son asks for bread
from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish,
will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
Such a son must be in some measure of need when merely asking
for bread, the essential of life; or a single fish from Galilea’s plenitude, or
again, even a little egg, that might support his life; whatever or however that
might be, Jesus was clearly speaking of one praying seriously and with confidence,
essentials for any true prayer.
But still further difficulties might be found in those following
words:
Everyone who asks
receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened;
These are often said to be patently unreal; far, far, too
good to be true! What if the son were sincerely
mistaken about what he thought he needed? … we all know how appearances can
deceive, and people -- as well as situations can so easily change!
Jesus, however, then went on to the heart of the matter:
If you, being evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will (the) heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"
Thinking seriously in this way, the importance of the
prayer Jesus had given the disciples would gradually become clearer to them. The disciples had observed Jesus praying to His
Father, and He had put His word ‘Father’ into their mouths in the prayer He gave them, as if He, to Whom they were speaking as disciples of Jesus,
was the heavenly and only true Father, Whose children they were to
become.
They might then begin to understand something of those mysterious
words of Isaiah:
My word be that goes forth from My mouth, It
shall not return to Me void;
for Jesus had put His most revered and loved word ‘Father’ into His disciples’ mouth
so that it might bring about for them a filial relationship like to that of
Jesus Himself, in which Jesus’ Father would become their Father, and they His
adopted children.
And all that would fit in perfectly with those ‘too good to
be true’ words of Jesus:
Everyone who asks
receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened;
for, even though those praying might be mistaken about what
they wanted, He to Whom they were praying is our Father, He knows what all of
us really need, and He will always give us the right gift because, as Jesus assures
us, He always gives what is in tune, so to speak, with the Holy Spirit to those
who ask of Him:
If you then, being evil,
know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"
The special name of the Holy Spirit is ‘Gift of God’, the
mutual ‘Gift’ of the Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity. Being also Their Gift to disciples on earth, He
is the Giver and the Dispenser of all God’s gifts because He Himself is the ‘Gift of God’.
People of God, this prayer given to us by Jesus Himself, is
rightly called, the Lord’s Prayer, for it opens up to us the heart of Jesus’
proclamation, the soul of His Good News.
The Old Testament prophets had spoken inspired words concerning the
doing of God’s will, and the coming of His Kingdom, on earth. They had proclaimed good news about the
rights of the poor and underprivileged, about the need for mutual respect, about
honesty and justice in human society and sincerity before God, all matters
which had previously been insufficiently attended to in a world where political
power, social influence, and religious formality had ruled. But Jesus did not come merely to teach us to clean
up, somewhat, our sin-stained lives, nor simply to encourage and help us wipe away
the tears of suffering from our neighbour’s face, His mission was to do what
only He could do, REVEAL THE HEAVENLY FATHER HIMSELF to us, reveal Him
as His very own and our Father Who wants us to know, love, and serve
Him -- in Jesus and by the Holy Spirit -- here on earth, as a preparation
for entering, as His adopted yet true children, into His heavenly Kingdom as
members of His heavenly family:
Father in heaven, hallowed
be Your name; Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
This God-given prayer is God-giving, god’s-making, and at
the same time, earth-fulfilling, and therefore it continues:
Give us day by day our
daily bread, and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who is
indebted to us. And do not lead us into
temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
People of God, we should use the Lord’s Prayer with confident
perseverance and with awesome reverence, for it is the supreme prayer of
Christians, and this whole episode in the Gospel is signed through and through
with the hallmark of Jesus sacrificing Himself entirely for us. Jesus is now our Head, and we living members
of His Body whom the Spirit, God’s Gift to us, is in Mother Church, continually
seeking to form us, ever more, in the true likeness of Jesus, so that in Him --
the Son -- we may become ever more truly children of the heavenly Father: living
here on earth for the glory of His Name and the greater good of our neighbour
until, as members of His in His heavenly kingdom, we can share, by the Spirit,
in His glory before the Father Who is All in All.
Father in heaven, hallowed
be Your Name; Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
