“Giving Good Things” by Beth DeCristofaro
Thursday of the First Week in Lent
… turn our mourning into gladness and our
sorrows into wholeness (Esther 12:25)
Lord, on the day I called for help, you
answered me.
(Psalm 138:3a)
… how much more will your heavenly Father
give good things to those who ask him. “Do to others whatever you would have
them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:11-12)
Piety
O Heavenly Father, turn my mourning into
gladness and my sorrows into wholeness.
O God, I believe. Brother Jesus,
help my unbelief. Holy Spirit guide my
belief toward God’s will.
Study
Queen Esther, prostrate with fear, prayed rather than wallow in
despair. How many of us have been there? Parents recently prayed desperately
for the healing of their critically ill daughter. Families in Idlib Province
pray frantically in their water barren, destroyed homes for a cease-fire in
Syria. Communities around the world pray that the covid19 virus either pass
them by or be mild with few consequences. And today, each of us personally has
a prayer in our hearts. Religions throughout time have taught that asking for
help from the Divine is a virtue.
Jesus tells us to be
insistent. “knock,” “seek,” “ask,” he tells us. He models this by going away
for prayer again and again with his father, who he tells us is our father. Do
not fear to ask because our heavenly father has good things for us; he teaches. The
first of those good things is the grace to ask. The immensity of God’s love
invites us to drink deeply in all ways, through joy, sorrow, uncertainty.
Agustin described this beautifully, saying, “You have made us for yourself, O
Lord and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
As we all too well know,
our prayers do not always produce the results for which we yearn. Our
human condition includes frailty of the human body, mutual strife, isolation,
cruelty, and more. All too often, we try to assuage our incompleteness through obsessions,
tanks or guns, uncritical devotion to people, causes or ideologies, and other
unsatisfactory pursuits. We fail to accept as accurate that we are wholly
fulfilled only in the heart of God. We have difficulty trusting that even if
our prayer feels unheard, God gives us good things, drawing us ever close to
the heart of the Divine.
God answers Esther’s
prayers spectacularly as He also answered many of my prayers. But
some have not. A child dies, bombs continue to fall, illness spreads, and decimates
neighborhoods. Our human condition is fraught, but our very self, created in
God’s image, is drawn ever more closely, strengthened, deepened, held precious
through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus.
Action
Do I
believe that I am given and will be given more “good things” from our Heavenly
Father? If not, why not? This Lent, how can I strengthen this belief,
and how might I leave behind that which prevents me from being fulfilled in the
heart of God alone? How might I also
strengthen my conviction that each one of my neighbors also merits “good
things”?
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