July 24th 2016. SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

GOSPEL: Luke 11:1-13

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 (Translation of a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio)

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel.

GOSPEL                                    Luke 11:1-13

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
"Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."
He said to them, "When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend
to whom he goes at midnight and says,
'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey
and I have nothing to offer him,'
and he says in reply from within,
'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked
and my children and I are already in bed.
I cannot get up to give you anything.'
I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.
"And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
What father among you would hand his son a snake
when he asks for a fish?
Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
If you then, who are wicked know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"

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

Kieran’s summary . . . The Gospel this week presents the Our Father as a model of authentic prayer. We do not learn to pray once and for always. Just as we must learn continually to communicate better with others, so must our spiritual lives be continually deepened. In the Our Father, everything in our lives (the submission to God’s will, the pardon of others, the overcoming of temptation) is all placed in the context of an attitude of filial relationship with a loving Father. Then Jesus presents us with a parable. A man needs bread for his friend and he goes to the house of an acquaintance to implore his help. The acquaintance may not respond out of friendship, but he will eventually respond if the first man keeps pestering him. What does this parable tell us? It is a fact that many of us do not have a great filial relationship with God. But even if the friendship is missing, God will listen to our prayers on behalf of others if we lift those prayers to God with insistence. This is how God has chosen to channel his grace. He has made us interdependent on each other and wishes us to come closer to him through the working out of our relationships with others. Prayer for ourselves is often egoism. Prayer for others is often more authentic and allows God to act in our lives with power.

We do not learn how to pray once and for always. Life is a continual process of learning how to pray

This Sunday we hear Luke’s version of the Our Father, which is simple and stark, but perhaps more radical. The disciples had asked Jesus how to pray. We must be always in a state of learning how to pray, just as we continually learn how to communicate better with those whom we love. In the spiritual life there are many phases in which we develop a deeper and more authentic relationship with the Lord. In the first reading, Abraham intercedes with the Lord for Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham’s nephew is in the city of Sodom and he is concerned for him. In the dialogue, Abraham seems more just than God, imploring that the righteous ones in the city not be destroyed. If there are just fifty good men in the city, or forty, or twenty, or ten, Abraham argues, then the city ought not to be destroyed. In reality, it is not that Abraham is influencing God’s actions with his reasoning: he is getting to know God better and is discovering that God would not destroy the city on account of these good people within it.

Why do we need to pray? Doesn’t God know what we need already?

But why should we, or Abraham, have to pray to God in the first place? Doesn’t the Lord already know what we want? Doesn’t he already care for us enough to give us what we need whether we ask for it or not? God wishes to channel his grace through the behaviour of man, through the love that we show for others. For example, none of us receives the Gospel directly from the Lord. We receive it from others, especially our parents who are the best evangelisers of all. The love, care and service of others is the pathway of the grace of God. God has chosen to save us by means of our reciprocal love. Abraham is concerned for the wellbeing of his nephew, and thus he obtains good things from the Lord. God does not force grace upon us. Where there is no love, love does not pass. But where there is love, even if it is the faltering, weak version of love that is ours, once it is referred to God, he is able to work with all of his power. Prayer, thus, is love in action, and God has ordained that his grace should be channelled in response to love of this sort.

The Our Father places us in filial relationship with the Father. All our actions thus become acts lived as children of a loving Father

In the Gospel, prayer is presented as the place of relationship with the Father. The forgiveness of the sins of others, the victory over temptation, living in the truth - all of these follow from a life lived as children of God. This prayer of placing oneself in a filial relationship with God has no equal. It is an act of union with Jesus whose existence consists in living out this relationship of sonship to the Father.

In the parable, a man wishes to obtain bread for his friend. This prompts him to ask for help with insistence. Even if we do not have a deep friendship with God, the needs of those around us can impel us to pray to God with sincerity. God cannot refuse to listen to our requests.

Then we have the interesting parable of the man who has an unexpected visitor but has no bread to offer him. So he goes to a friend and pesters him for bread. How often we are confronted by situations in which a friend comes to us looking for something, some consolation, a word of advice, and we have nothing to give. In the parable, Jesus says that if the friend does not respond out of friendship to the demands for bread, he will eventually be moved by the persistence of the requests. In other words, Jesus is telling us that, even if we do not have a true friendship with God, the desperation of the situation of others can transform us into authentic people of prayer. The anguish of others can prompt us to lift our prayers sincerely to God. So even if we have failed to become God’s friends, the need around us can enable us to penetrate the fortress of the grace of God. Thus, our power does not derive from our human talents, nor the relationship we may have established with God. But God looks at the sincerity and persistence with which we are asking. At the end of the parable Jesus says: “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you”. In the midst of a grave poverty of relationship and spiritual superficiality, we can come closer to the Lord by means of an authentic request for assistance for those people around us. “Lord I do not know how to help my friend in need. Lord I do not know how to raise my children.” Sometimes we are cold and distant from God, but this anguish for others can help us draw closer to him. The desire to give bread to those around us is prayer. The desire to have bread for ourselves is egoism. The request for bread for another is a good starting point. When we allow the needs of others to touch our hearts, then we become insistent, driven as we are by our concern for others. The grace of God flows through love of this sort.