Our prayer relationship

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today remind us of our situation which is that we are not God. We seem to have many ideas about how “our God” should behave. FriarJude Winkler suggests that we often have solutions for God to deal with the evil doers and those who the prophet Malachi identifies trumpet themselves proudly while ignoring the Law and Tradition or by cheating or disrespecting the religious practice in which we find spiritual growth. The time of judgement will be in the domain of God. We see the world and the gifts and talents of others from a human perspective. Tom Purcell at Creighton University recalls a teaching where our lives are compared to a beautiful tapestry woven with gifts and talents from God but we see the tapestry from the underside. The parables today from the Gospel of Luke encourage patience, perseverance and persistence in prayer.  Fr. Pierre Teilhard deChardin, SJ, is quoted “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Our spiritual being is fed by continuous contact with God through the Spirit which is the gift of God to His children. Glenmary Home Missioner, Father Charlie, explores the exhortation of Paul to “pray always” as the disposition for a deep relationship with God. In this relationship, our direction will tend to be away from the evil doers presented by the psalmist and toward the trust of the prayerful that God always offers us the best for our lives in Him.