Petition

Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Est 4:17 Within your will, O Lord, all things are established, and there is none that can resist your will. For you have made all things, the heaven and the earth, and all that is held within the circle of heaven; you are the Lord of all.

Collect Almighty ever‑living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever

Scripture today: Galatians 3:1-5; (Psalm) Luke 1; Luke 11:5-13

Then Jesus said to them, Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:5-13)

Petition I remember in the year 1968 attending a lunchtime lecture at the University of Sydney given by a priest who taught in the Department of Philosophy there. His lecture was on prayer, and he gave the example of a person or group praying for rain. Soon after, rain poured down — he said that it was reasonable to suppose that the rain was an answer to prayer. That is to say, without the prayer, it would not have rained in that way and at that point. There were many students attending the lecture, and two of the professors of Philosophy also. The professors did not find the example of prayer for rain convincing. Their answer was that the arrival of the rain at that point was a mere coincidence. It was due to other factors and would have happened even if there had been no prayer of petition. The secular mind, of course, has little belief in the power of prayer. Even for the religious person, however, it can be difficult to believe that in a world governed by mighty physical and moral laws, the Creator will readily intervene to alter the course of things in response to prayer. This difficulty can increase when there seems to be no difference emerging from prayers of petition. A person who has had a stroke and is left speechless, remains speechless despite long and persistent prayer by relatives for his healing. The faith of the praying relatives remains undimmed, but what is to be said of prayer of petition in the face of this? Cardinal Newman, beatified in September 2010, had something to say about this late in his life. In his address to the Catholic Union of Great Britain on May 12, 1880, he observed, “The Creator acts by a ... system of laws. ... Sometimes, indeed, he directly contradicts His own laws, as in raising the dead; but such (are) rare acts... for the most part his miracles are rather what may be called exaggerations, or carrying out to an extreme point, of the laws of Nature, than simple contrarieties to them..” He suggested, therefore, that generally we “take likely objects of prayer, not unlikely objects.” We must have great faith, while bearing in mind the will and plan of God.

A second point is this. Our Lord’s example of the man at the door of his friend asking for three loaves of bread is of one with a temporal, material need being addressed. But the essential thing is that we present before God our needs. That is to say, they ought be true needs. When the children of Israel were making their way through the wilderness on route to the promised land, they were sustained by God with what they needed. But they still complained. In other words, they were demanding from God more than they needed, and were bitter when those requests were not granted. What do we really need? There are many things we have which we do not really need at all, especially when in the face of tremendous needs of people elsewhere in the world. But what is our greatest need? What does God himself want so much for us? When all is said and done, when this brief life is over (perhaps very suddenly), what will we see to have been our greatest need? Our greatest and most pressing need is our own sanctification. Our greatest need is that we resist and overcome temptation to do evil no matter how slight, and that we always choose what is good. This is the mightiest work in life, and the stakes are high. At any point we could be gone, gone forever, with all opportunities to be better and holier than we are, then at an end. That is the pressing need for which God has himself taken astounding steps in sending his own beloved Son to die on the Cross that we might be redeemed and sanctified. This is the will of God, St Paul writes, your sanctification. This is surely confirmed in our passage today in which our Lord, having urged us to pray for what we need, and to pray for it persistently and with confidence, reminds us that “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:5-13). We need to do God’s will in the innumerable little duties of every day. We ought not be aiming day in and day out for the pie in the sky, but for the loving fulfilment of the duties of the day. These are the pennies which if collected, will make us truly rich in God’s sight.

For this we need the help of the mighty Spirit of Christ and the Father. We need him to sustain and guide our efforts — not to replace them, but to sanctify, guide and strengthen them. If we resolutely keep our hearts directed towards the one thing necessary, appealing to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit to attain that one necessary thing, then we may, despite its difficulty, attain it. How could God refuse us his love and his grace? The great colloquy of St Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises stresses this. Take all, he has us say, but give me your love and your grace. This is what we need, and it is what God so wishes to give us. Ah! Give me your love and your grace, Lord!

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second reflection:

Hail Mary! Consider the honour and respect with which the angel Gabriel addressed the humble and obscure virgin Mary. She was full of grace, he said. Hail, you who are full of God's favour! Every time we pray the 'Hail Mary' we unite ourselves with all of heaven in this salutation to Mary the mother of God. Hail Mary! We repeat this constantly during our recitation of the Rosary, and on the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary we think of her as she is addressed by the Church's members when praying the Rosary. It is obvious how highly the Church regards the Rosary, when we think of its history and the signal success that has accompanied its usage. We think of how heavily indulgenced is the recitation of the Rosary, and of how frequently and authoritatively the popes have urged this prayer on Christ’s faithful. We could also think of how our own praying of the Rosary has been blessed by special blessings and graces.

The Rosary! Let us resolve to honour Mary by frequently and devoutly praying this great prayer.

(E.J.Tyler)