The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with the tension between good and evil in our lives that finds consolation in our trust in prayer.
Prayer and Trust
The reading from the Book of Malachi describes the reward of the faithful on the Great Day of the Lord.
* [3:14] As mourners: the adverb translated “as mourners” means something like “with a long face.” * [3:16] Record book: see note on Ex 32:32.1
Psalm 1 presents the Two Ways.
* [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
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus teaches about perseverance in Prayer.
* [11:1–13] Luke presents three episodes concerned with prayer. The first (Lk 11:1–4) recounts Jesus teaching his disciples the Christian communal prayer, the “Our Father”; the second (Lk 11:5–8), the importance of persistence in prayer; the third (Lk 11:9–13), the effectiveness of prayer.3
Nancy Shirley thinks the challenge for most of us is understanding God’s time is not our time. Of course, as we age, we experience more and more losses -- our friends, our career, some of our abilities, and the most difficult of all, our beloved spouses – some become bitter, angry, and full of despair, yet some find even more solace in their prayers. What makes the difference? How do we help them open their hearts to God and feel His presence?
Amid all this, I had some serendipitous yet very soul-filling conversations with a colleague. It began with noticing some books that were being read and striking up a conversation and then some discussions about resources for students. Soon we were sharing views and experiences with God in our lives. She presented a beautiful thought about us in our myopic worlds sitting with a variety of puzzle pieces in our hands, studying them, trying to make sense of them and figure how they went together. However, different from when we put together a jigsaw puzzle looking at the picture on the cover of the box, for we have no picture to look, no way to know what the finished product should look like. Only God has the entire picture . . . we stumble and think we somehow can finish it yet when we let go and let God the pieces will fall into the right places. This brought us to a great discussion of TrusT. I shared what I have shared in reflections that TrusT begins and ends with the cross.4
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)5
The Word Among Us for October 7, 2021 comments that the qualities of wonderful friendships here on earth show a dynamic, gritty picture of love, don’t they? It’s like Jesus’ parable, where the sleepy-eyed man shares his family’s provisions because his friend knocks persistently, not because he likes to be awakened at midnight.
Your heavenly Father is a dynamic, real-life friend. He is your dearest friend, even if he sometimes seems “slow to answer the door.” But Jesus urges us not to give up, not to mistrust him, and never to stop asking the Father for what we need. Because in the end, he will give us every good gift! “Father, give me the grace to trust you more than any other friend.”6
Friar Jude Winkler contrasts recognition of God with arrogance as Malachi points to a day of reckoning. Hospitality was often required at midnight in the warm climate where people travelled at night. Friar Jude reminds us that God, as a parent, will not give us what would be destructive to us.
Franciscan media comments, on the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, that the development of the rosary has a long history. First a practice developed of praying 150 Our Fathers in imitation of the 150 Psalms. Then there was a parallel practice of praying 150 Hail Marys. Soon a mystery of Jesus’ life was attached to each Hail Mary.
The purpose of the rosary is to help us meditate on the great mysteries of our salvation. Pius XII called it a compendium of the gospel. The main focus is on Jesus—his birth, life, death, and resurrection. The Our Fathers remind us that Jesus’ Father is the initiator of salvation. The Hail Marys remind us to join with Mary in contemplating these mysteries. They also make us aware that Mary was and is intimately joined with her Son in all the mysteries of his earthly and heavenly existence. The Glory Bes remind us that the purpose of all life is the glory of the Trinity. The rosary appeals to many. It is simple. The constant repetition of words helps create an atmosphere in which to contemplate the mysteries of God. We sense that Jesus and Mary are with us in the joys and sorrows of life. We grow in hope that God will bring us to share in the glory of Jesus and Mary forever.7
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares a reflection connected with the theological and scientific work of Ilia Delio that honors both her Franciscan theology and her personal relationship with a beloved pet.
I did not have to wonder whether or not Mango had a soul. I knew it implicitly by the way he listened to me talking or thinking aloud, the way he sat on my office chair waiting for me to finish writing so he could eat, or simply the way he looked at me—eye to eye—in the early morning, at the start of a new day. Soul existence is expressed in the language of love. . . . Love makes us something; it makes us alive and draws us in to the dynamism of life, sustaining life’s flow despite many layers of sufferings and disappointments. . . . If God is love, then the vitality of love, even the love of a furry creature, is the dynamic presence of God. . . . Every creature is born out of the love of God, sustained in love, and transformed in love. Every sparrow that falls to the ground is known and loved by God (cf. Matthew 10:29); the Spirit of God is present in love to each creature here and now so that all creaturely life shares in cosmic communion. . . .8
Our vision of the Way forward may be obscured by the trials and temptations of the day. We move toward clarity in prayer and trust that God will provide what we need.
References
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