Every religious tradition recognizes the importance of prayer, a time spent in the presence of the divine. Most people see themselves as poor prayers. They try to be still and bring their thanks and their troubles to God. Immediately they are bombarded with what we call ‘distractions’. They think of all the things they should be doing, the idea being that their time could be better well spent getting things done. Thoughts of their unworthiness trouble them, why would God be interested in me or care for me after all the things I’ve done? Memories of recent of past conflicts with family members or co workers come to mind and the feelings of anger and resentment resulting from such conflicts still bother them. The list could go on and on.
You’ll notice that in the gospel the disciples asked Jesus, ‘teach us to pray as John taught his disciples’. And so Jesus does; he teaches them and us that prayer is entering into a relationship, we speak to our father, not as someone distant and impersonal, but someone very close to us. Our first words to our father are words of praise, ‘hallowed be thy name’ we are in wonder and awe in the presence of God. Next we open our lives to the will of God as we ask, ‘thy kingdom come’. Thy kingdom come to that part of my life which has yet to be redeemed, that part of my life that resists your will, your love, your forgiveness. Thy kingdom come to that part of my life that resists keeping your new commandment, ‘love one another as I have loved you.’
We recognize our dependence on God as we ask for our daily bread, found in the graces of God that will see us through the day. We ask for bread, that grace of God that strengthens us to be faithful to who we are and what we are to do each day. We ask for the bread of God’s graciousness so that we can be gracious to all those who come into our lives in the course of the day. Especially we ask for the bread of willingness to forgive those who have hurt, harmed, disappointed or failed us in any way just as our Father has willingly and graciously forgiven us. Finally we ask to be protected from all those things that could lure us away from the life and love of our Father.
We’ve taken the lesson Jesus taught his disciples and made it into a prayer itself, our prayer the Our Father. It would be good for us if we said this prayer thoughtfully, knowing that it is more than a prayer, it is a lesson on how we should come to God in prayer.
Too often we associate prayer with asking, even bargaining with God, it’s a bit like the ‘gimmes’, give me peace and quiet, give me patience, give me a job, give me health. We can have the attitude that if we say certain devotional prayers, if we say so many rosaries, if we say certain chaplets, if we keep the first Fridays or first Saturdays, if we pass this powerful prayer on to others, God will certainly hear us and give us what we want. This is called devotional prayer and it sustains many people in their lives. But it is good to remember the warning of Jesus that we not multiply our prayers thinking that by using many words we will be heard. Jesus assures us that our heavenly father knows our needs even before we ask.
Ideally our first prayer should be about praise and thanksgiving. Conscious of how blessed we are we thank God for the gifts with which we have been blessed.
The most perfect of all prayer is what we are doing right now – this prayer of thanksgiving – this Eucharist. In thanksgiving we offer the same sacrifice, the same gift Jesus offered his father, his very life for the reconciliation of the world. We offer this gift in thanksgiving. To be what it is meant to be there should be full and active participation. We all should be involved in the prayers and the songs.
The first reading and the gospel are about perseverance is our prayer. We can remember times when we knocked ’til our knuckles were raw and nothing seemed to happen. But the closing words of the gospel call us to keep things in perspective.” If you 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.’
You know how you love and care for your own children, you want nothing but the best for them. How much more will our heavenly Father care for us and our needs as he draws us deeper and deeper into his life and love. This is the truth we have to trust as we say,’ they kingdom come, thy will be done.’
As we continue to celebrate this greatest of all prayers, this Eucharist, we pray for ourselves and for each other that we never cease to say, ’Lord, teach us to pray.’
| Posted in Homily |
After the parable of the Prodigal Son, this parable of the Good Samaritan is one of best known and most challenging parables of Jesus. Read more »
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In the Book of Exodus we read how Moses selected seventy elders to help guide and govern the people. Luke has Jesus as the new Moses sending out seventy disciples as advance men to prepare the people for his coming. He warned them their reception would be mixed. Villages would welcome them and villages would reject them. Jesus wanted them to know that they were to depend on nothing and nobody but only on the Spirit with which he sends them. The words most remembered from this gospel are ‘the harvest is great but the laborers are few.’ These words are constantly used to refer to the need of vocations to the priesthood or religious life but this is too narrow an understanding of them. Each one of us, no matter what our state in life is called to be a harvester. One of the things we are asked to do as followers of Christ is to help ‘take away the sins of the world.’
Someone described Jesus’ taking away the sins of the world in this way: “ Jesus took away the sins of the world by holding, carrying, purifying, and transforming tension, that is, by taking in the bitterness, anger, jealousy, hatred, slander, and every other kind of thing that is cancerous within our human community, and not giving it back in kind.
In essence, Jesus did this by acting like a purifier, a water filter of sorts: He took in hatred, held it, transformed it, and gave back love; he took in bitterness, held it, transformed it, and gave back graciousness; he took in curses, held them transformed them, and gave back blessing; and he took in murder, held it, transformed it, and gave back forgiveness. Jesus resisted the instinct to give back in kind, hatred for hatred, curses for curses, jealousy for jealousy, murder for murder. He held and transformed these things rather than simply re-transmit them.”
As followers of Christ we are invited to be the lamb of God, one who is willing to take the all too common tensions, conflicts, frictions and stresses we experience in our families, communities and workplaces and as Christ did, hold them and transform them and never re- transmit them, never giving back in kind. In the living of our own lives we are meant to be like a purifier, a water filter of sorts, transforming the hurts, misunderstandings, slights that are so often a part of our lives and never give them back in kind. It is not an easy thing to do, we automatically want to hit back, tit for tat and we know from experience that only makes matters worse.
Trying to live as a filter, a water purifier we are in our own small way doing what the disciples in today’s gospel were doing; proclaiming the kingdom of God is near, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. From what went on in Toronto last weekend God know we need these things in the life of our city these days.
At first reading of this gospel we might think that Jesus was having a bad hair day. He sounds so gruff and crotchety. Luke tells us that Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. There is an intensity in those words. A determined Jesus heads to the holy city where he knew he would fulfill the mission his Father gave him; bear witness to the truth of God’s love for all of us. The next ten chapters in Luke’s gospel tell us what happened on that journey as Jesus went about the spiritual formation of his disciples, preparing them for the crisis they would all face in Jerusalem. Read more »
Just a few words on today’s gospel. We see Jesus alone with his disciples. Jesus was off by himself praying. The disciples were close by. Some time earlier Jesus sent the disciples out on their own to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. After a while they came back with all kinds of success stories of the wonderful thing they’d done. Read more »
Founded by St. Paul of the Cross, every Passionist takes a special vow to spend his or her energies in promoting remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus, the memory of the Cross, and reflection of the meaning of the Cross for the world.
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