JULY 28th 2013. SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY OF TIME

GOSPEL: LUKE 11:1-13

From a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio.

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel. 

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GOSPEL:                                     Luke 11:1-13

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying, and when he had finished one of his disciples said, 'Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples'. He said to them, 'Say this when you pray:

"Father, may your name be held holy, 

your kingdom come; 

give us each day our daily bread, 

and forgive us our sins, 

for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us. 

And do not put us to the test."'

He also said to them, 'Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him in the middle of the night to say, "My friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine on his travels has just arrived at my house and I have nothing to offer him"; and the man answers from inside the house, "Do not bother me. The door is bolted now, and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up to give it you". I tell you, if the man does not get up and give it him for friendship's sake, persistence will be enough to make him get up and give his friend all he wants.

'So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks always receives; the one who searches always finds; the one who knocks will always have the door opened to him. What father among you would hand his son a stone when he asked for bread? Or hand him a snake instead of a fish? Or hand him a scorpion if he asked for an egg? If you then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!'

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD:  Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

Kieran’s summary  . . . Luke’s account of the Our Father focuses on the theme of asking for bread. We must ask only for the bread we need today. God wants us to present ourselves before him in a childlike way every day, looking to him for our daily sustenance, not seeking to store up things that would allow us to survive autonomously without him. Jesus then tells a parable about a man who asks for bread on behalf of his friend. This is a role that all of us must assume in life! How many people we meet are starving interiorly! They need the bread of life from Jesus but they do not know what they need, nor who to ask. We must knock insistently on the door of Jesus so that these people we encounter will be fed with real food by Jesus. The world feeds scorpions and serpents, the symbols of evil in the Bible. Only our heavenly Father gives the food that nurtures life. We must continually ask on behalf of others for this food. Finally, Don Fabio emphasizes the plural nature of the Our Father. All of the petitions are in the plural. We do not approach God in an individual, egoistic way, but as a community and through his Son. To the extent that the Our Father is prayed only for my daily needs, then it is a sterile prayer. To the extent that it fails to ask for bread for others then it is an empty exercise. 

Luke’s account focuses on the theme of daily bread

This Sunday the Church proclaims the version of the Our Father as found in the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s version is simpler and more stark than the version found in Matthew’s Gospel, but the sense of the prayer is absolutely the same. It is not the exact wording that counts, but the spirit of the prayer. Jesus is telling us to pray in this manner, not to use a fixed formula like “abracadabra” or “open sesame”. All of us when we pray are prone to moments of distraction when the words we say are little more than babble. It is not the words that count, ultimately, but what our hearts are expressing when we pray.

The passage in which Luke gives his version of the Our Father focuses on the theme of our daily bread. Jesus tells the story of someone who manages to obtain bread for a friend by the insistence of his pleas. Then Jesus goes on to speak further on the theme of food, comparing the good food provided by a loving father with another type of food that no father would offer his children. There are many other aspects to this passage, but we will focus on the theme of bread.

We should only ask for what we need today, not what we need for all days. The Lord wants us to enter into a continual daily relationship where we look to him as a Father

“Give us this day our daily bread”. We should ask only for the bread that we need on this particular day, not the bread that we need for all days to come. When the people of Israel were being formed into the people of God during their time in the desert, they were fed manna from heaven on a daily basis. Manna was bread for this day only, and it was a waste of time trying to store it because it quickly went mouldy. It is essential in the Christian life to distinguish those things that are not to be done once only. We must learn to have a daily relationship with God. God rejoices in being our father, in satisying us on a continual basis. He longs for us to present ourselves before him every day, ready to receive the good things that only he can give.

We must continually ask Jesus to give the bread of life to the people we encounter who are in need. Often these people are not in a position themselves to ask Jesus for life. They do not know what they need or where to turn. We must ask for them.

Then the text goes on to speak of the man who pleas for bread for a friend who has arrived unexpectedly after a long journey. The notion of friendship is very important in the parable. The man pleas for bread from a friend on behalf of another friend. The second man does not respond immediately in friendship, but then he relents. What is the significance of this story? It often happens that we encounter others who have arrived at a certain point in their journey and their interior person is starving to death. People come to us many times and they need that special word of life that I cannot give. I must knock at the door of my friend Jesus, and I must knock with insistence. The person that I am interceding for has need of my mediation. For whatever reason they are not in a position themselves to knock at the door of Jesus and enter his house. Jesus has the bread of life. I must ask Jesus to give it to me for that person who is before me and who is in need. We must take on this role of knocking continually on the door of Jesus, pleading on behalf of our friends who are in need. I do not have a decent bread to give to my friends. I must ask Jesus for the food that is better.

The Our Father is a sterile prayer if prayed in an egocentric way. It must be prayed in the plural.

The Our Father is not to be prayed for egoistic purposes! We must pray it so that others too will obtain their daily bread! We must ask on behalf of others for that which is not a scorpion nor a serpent but real food. How often people come to us who have lived up to now on a diet of scorpions and serpents! The scorpion and the serpent are symbols of evil. Scripture tells us that the disciples of Jesus trample scorpions and serpents underfoot. The egg, instead, is a symbol of life, and the fish is a symbol of the Risen Jesus. One of the salient features of the Our Father is that it speaks always in the plural. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, as we forgive others. Do not abandon us to evil. We encounter the Father as a community not as an individual. Only Jesus has a unique relationship with the Father. My relationship with God is through him and with others. The feast we enjoy with the Lord is either open to everyone or it is not authentic at all. The Our Father, in fact, is a sterile prayer if it is not prayed in a way that battles against our tendency to relate to God in an egocentric way. If we pray the Our Father in such a way that we fail to ask for bread for others then we are wasting our time. How many people pray and pray and pray, but the prayer is being consumed by their own egos! Even the things that are holy can become the food of our own vanity. It is critical that we pray as “We” and that we ask for bread for our friends. It is essential that we knock with insistence on the door of the Heavenly Father, so that he will open the door and give us this bread for ourselves and others.