“Receiving and Giving Good Gifts” by Beth DeCristofaro
If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how
Piety
Turn our mourning into gladness and our sorrows into wholeness (Esther 12:25)
Study
Years ago, a young cousin, now married with three of her own children, besieged her father with 3-year old questions while he was trying to start a fire in the fireplace. “Why do you put the logs like that, daddy?” “Why are the stones dirty, daddy?” “Why can’t I poke the logs too, daddy?” “Why do you keep looking up there, daddy, can I see too?” Why? Why? Why? Finally, in exasperation to her question “Why is the fire orange, daddy?” our cousin gave her a long, rambling discussion of oxygenation, burning temperatures and the like. Meghan answered quietly “Oh” and turned away to play with her baby brother. We all loved the moment of patient, loving parenting.
Today’s Gospel begins with the famous “Knock and the door shall be opened.” Our prayers will be answered although I suspect we believe that sometimes God’s answers are as oblique as Jim’s to his toddler. On the contrary, Matthew goes on to have Jesus reveal God’s great generosity and that this is a relationship with God, not a one-way, heaven-down deal. Jesus tasks us to ask and trust how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him, then turn around to open the door for others in their need just as we do in our shared humanity.
Action
In this time of Lent are we aware of God’s longing for us? God not only invites us to knock on a divine door but offers us a personal key, Jesus in the Eucharist. For what are we knocking? As we wait for the door to open are we open to answers and opportunities for Christ’s friendship right in front of us?
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