The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite contemplation of the character of our interaction with God as business contract, chutzpah, or fruit of the gift of the Spirit.The Prophet Malachi emphasizes the Reward of the Faithful on the Great Day of the Lord underlying the need to serve God.
Two Ways
* [3:20] Wings: a common symbol of the manifestation of a god in the ancient Near East is the winged sun disk found, for example, on premonarchic jar handles. Cf. Nm 6:25; Ps 4:7; 31:17; 34:6; 84:12.1
Psalm 1 views life as activity, as choosing between Two Ways, either the good or the bad.
* [Psalm 1] A preface to the whole Book of Psalms, contrasting with striking similes the destiny of the good and the wicked. The Psalm views life as activity, as choosing either the good or the bad. Each “way” brings its inevitable consequences. The wise through their good actions will experience rootedness and life, and the wicked, rootlessness and death.2
The Gospel of Luke shares Jesus teaching on Prayer and Perseverance and the answer to our Prayer in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
* [11:13] The holy Spirit: this is a Lucan editorial alteration of a traditional saying of Jesus (see Mt 7:11). Luke presents the gift of the holy Spirit as the response of the Father to the prayer of the Christian disciple.3
Barbara Dilly writes of a friend who wants to know how he can have everything he has and do everything he does and still have more. He does not want to give up anything, especially his ego and his will. What he really wants, however, is to feel like God blesses him and takes care of him. He wants to feel good about himself. That is what he thinks that she has that he doesn’t think is available to him. He doesn’t know that it is.
There is no room in these lessons for judgment against others. Faith is itself a gift and some of us are just more open to the words of the Lord than others. Being able to see everything in life as a gift, is itself a gift. These lessons remind us that the door to God’s blessings is always open to all who ask and who seek. But some people need help to do that. It is my prayer that we the faithful live our lives in such a way that others see God’s love at work in blessings in our lives that are available to everyone.4
Jules Evans interviews Nicky Gumbel, founder of the Alpha Course who believes the Holy Spirit always answers our invocation, on encounters with the Holy Spirit.
If the fruit is that people are healed, set free, their lives changed, their family lives restored, if they love their neighbours more, if they transform their communities, if it leads to the abolition of the slave trade, that sounds like God.5
Don Schwager quotes “Ask by praying, seek by proper living, knock by persevering,” by Bede the Venerable, 672-735 A.D.
"Desiring that we arrive at the joys of the heavenly kingdom, our Lord and Savior taught us to ask these joys of him and promised that he would give them to us if we asked for them. 'Ask,' he said, 'and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.' Dearly beloved..., we earnestly and with our whole heart must ponder these words of our Lord. He bears witness that the kingdom of heaven is not given to, found by and opened to those who are idle and unoccupied but to those who ask for it, seek after it and knock at its gates. The gate of the kingdom must be asked for by praying. It must be sought after by living properly. It must be knocked at by persevering." (excerpt from HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 2.51.20)6
The Word Among Us Meditation on Malachi 3:13-20 ponders that if God seemed to be blessing the wicked, they wondered, why should they bother following God’s laws (Malachi 3:14-15)? The people could ask that question only because they were looking at their relationship with God as if it were a business contract. They thought they could trade their obedience for his blessing.
So what can we count on in this life? We can’t count on immediate solutions to our problems and questions. But we can count on God’s love and his constant desire to draw us closer to him. As we hold fast to him, we will receive his love—the greatest “profit” of all (Malachi 3:14).7
Friar Jude Winkler identifies Malachi as a messenger warning against those who believe God has nothing to do with the world. God experienced as a parent offering the gift of the Holy Spirit that we really need. Friar Jude suggests chutzpah and pushiness in our prayer supports a real dialogue, not simply a wish list.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that the connection that Francis of Assisi made with “the enemy” in his lifetime may be his most powerful statement to the world about putting together the inner life with the outer, and all of the resulting social, political, and ethnic implications.
Francis left his own culture at “great cost” to himself to go to the Sultan, to enter the world of another—and one who was considered a public enemy of his world and religion. Francis seems to have tried three times, but only succeeded in getting to his goal on the third try. On this attempt, he went to Egypt primarily to tell the Christian troops that they were wrong in what they were doing.
Francis’ humility and respect for the other, and thus for Islam, gained him what seems to have been an extended time, maybe as much as three weeks, with al-Kamil. The Sultan sent him away with protection and a gift (a horn that was used for the Muslim call to prayer), which suggests they had given and received mutual regard and respect. This horn can still be seen in Assisi.8
The many possible forms of relationship with God invite our acceptance of the Divine invitation to intimate connection as we journey in life.
References
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