Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
“Your father knows what you need before you ask him.” What a comforting thought – there is someone who knows our deepest desires and needs before we can even express them. How well do you need to know someone to be able to know their needs before they are voiced? This kind of knowing can only come from a relationship of vulnerability, openness and trust. That is the kind of relationship God wants us to have with him.
The only other person I can think of who knows our needs before we ask for them, is that of a parent. As a parent we know when our newborn babies need food, clean diapers and sleep. They don’t know how to ask us for them, so they are dependent on us to provide for them, to love them and to meet their unspoken needs.
The resemblance that our God-me relationship has to that of a parent-child relationship, in terms of support and meeting one’s needs is why then has Jesus teach us to call God, Our Father. Just having Father’s Day this past weekend, I spent a lot of time thanking God for my own father and for the wonderful father that my husband has become. Both will do anything to provide for their children and both work to provide a sense of stability and support to them, so that often needs are met before they are even realized.
In this Gospel reading Jesus teaches us a beautiful prayer – the Our Father. Three years ago I helped lead a high school retreat based on the Our Father. During the retreat we tried to help the teens to really understand and take ownership of the words of this sacred prayer, so that each time they pray this they will truly pray the words rather than rattle them off without meaning. By the end of the retreat I found the prayer had taken on new meaning for me as well.
As we reflected on the various sections of the prayer, I found myself truly moved by the lines, “on earth as it is in heaven”. I wanted to create heaven here on Earth, as God calls us to do. What would this look like? How would we feel? What would we need to do to create heaven here on Earth?At the end of the retreat we watched a video to help illustrate the love of God the father. You can find it at www.teamhoyt.com. You will cry. The video is about Dick and Rick Hoyt, a father and his physically handicapped son. Rick had always wanted to live a normal life and wanted to know what it would be like to run a 5 mile race. Rather than allow his son to be limited, Dick ran the race, pushing his son. Since then they have run over a thousand races, including ironman triathlons, together. This father puts imagery to the kind of love God has for us – a love that will carry us when we feel we can no longer walk the road; that will support us when we can no longer stand and that will provide for all of our needs, the ones we know of and the ones we don’t.
- Amanda Grimm