Thursday of the First Week in Lent
Does God answer our prayers? That’s a tricky question because I think it depends on the prayer. Today’s gospel reading (Matthew 7: 7-12) from the Sermon on the Mount has Jesus teaching his disciples about prayer. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.” And he doesn’t exclude anyone, for Jesus’s words continue that “everyone” who asks, seeks and knocks will receive, find, and the door will be opened. So, why, then, do not all of our prayers seem to be answered?
Again, I think it depends on the prayer. What are we asking of God? When I was younger I would pray that my team would win the game or that it would snow enough for school to be closed. As I got a little older I would pray that I would get an A on my test or that I wouldn’t get a ticket (that I deserved) for speeding. Later in life the prayers were more serious and for other people too: let it not be cancer, or please cure the cancer, or that I not miscarry this new life inside of me, or that my teenager be safe. As I’ve grown and matured I’ve come to understand (although not easily) that prayer doesn’t necessarily get us what we want, it doesn’t work like a magical chant to make things turn out the way we want them to. I’ve learned that the reality of life and death, joy and suffering exist, and that God’s presence IN life and death, joy and sorrow, is what really matters.
The gospel passage points out that just as we would not give our own children a stone when they ask for bread, so much more will God give good things to those who ask (for we are children of God). God wants good for us, and that is not always what we think is best. I’m not saying that God causes death and suffering, but it is part of our humanity and part of the mystery of life. In Luke’s gospel, a similar passage is found but with the addition of the Holy Spirit, “…how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11: 13b) Perhaps that is the key to how we should be praying then. Not so much asking for certain things or outcomes in our life, but asking for God’s presence through the Holy Spirit so that we might have the peace and wisdom, strength and love that comes from God alone to face whatever circumstances life brings.
We have two examples of prayer in the first reading and responsorial psalm today. Ester prays that God “turn our mourning into gladness, and our sorrows in to wholeness.” (Est C, 25) And the psalmist declares that when he called upon the Lord for help, “you answered me; you built up strength within me.” (Psalm 138: 3)
Let us take some time to reflect on how we pray and what we are seeking from God. Let us ask God to guide our prayer and renew our time spent with God in prayer this Lent. Might we be called to a different, perhaps deeper form of prayer as we are maturing in our faith? Ask, Seek, Knock and the door will be opened.
- Eileen Miller