October 8, 2009
Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Then you will again see the distinction between the just and the wicked; Between him who serves God, and him who does not serve him. For lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, And the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the LORD of hosts. But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays. Malachi 3:18-20
And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11:9-10
Piety
Abba Father by Carey Landry
http://www.spiritandsong.com/compositions/1438
Abba, Abba, Father. You are the potter; we are the clay, the work of your hands.
1. Mold us, mold us and fashion us into the image of Jesus, your Son, of Jesus, your Son.
2. Father, may we be one in you. May we be one in you as he is in you, and you are in him.
3. Glory, glory and praise to you. Glory and praise to you forever, amen, forever, amen.
Study
If we want to get to know a friend, we spend time with that friend talking and doing things together. Jesus is trying to lead us to a method in which we can get to know him and the Father better. To do so, we have to engage them in conversation.
Jesus has just taught us “how” to pray in yesterday’s Gospel. This lesson was a radical change from the Hebrew tradition where people could not even use the name of God in a prayer. They had to invent terms to use for God’s name. Yet here was Jesus telling us to address God as “our Father,” as “daddy,” as “Abba!” Imagine the shock in the hearts and minds of his audience.
Jesus knows he can not just leave the teaching like that. He has to say something more. So like any good speaker, he starts to give a few examples and anecdotes so the disciples will know how to put this important lesson into practice.
First, Jesus equates what we ask of God to what our neighbors ask of us. Then, he even brings the examples closer to home and equates what we ask of God to what a child asks his or her parents. "If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Luke 11:13)
This is reality. This allows the listeners to realize that prayer is not something “out there” that has to be sought. Instead, it is something in the here and now that can be experienced in the present moment if we are attentive to God and present our petitions.
Action
Putting this faith into practice is hard work. Jesus tries to make it easier and we try to make it more complicated. Today I read this interview with Chicago Cardinal Francis George about his new book about evangelizing American Catholics.
http://ncronline.org/news/people/cardinal-georges-plan-evangelize-america
Check it out and consider how you can make your faith more Christ-centric and “simply Catholic” in the spirit of what we are reading in Luke 11 this week.
(Remember Palanca for the Men’s Candidates next week – October 15-18 at Missionhurst!)
