TRUSTFUL PRAYER

June 17, Thursday

Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

            Paul pleads to the Corinthians to remain faithful to Christ, who had chosen him to be his apostle and had sent him to Corinth.

      In the words of Jesus, Matthew gives us today a catechesis on prayer. The reason and basis of our prayer should not only be merely that we need something and we should not think that our prayer is more powerful when we use a stream of words. We pray because Jesus asks us to and because we have trust in our Father who knows what we need even before we ask him. In our prayer we should also place first things first: God and his kingdom, which is manifested and communicated to us by bread, forgiveness and protection.

 

First Reading: 2 Corinthians 11:1-11

Will you put up with a little foolish aside from me? Please, just for a moment. The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband. And now I’m afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.

It seems that if someone shows up preaching quite another Jesus than we preached—different spirit, different message—you put up with him quite nicely. But if you put up with these big-shot “apostles,” why can’t you put up with simple me? I’m as good as they are. It’s true that I don’t have their voice, haven’t mastered that smooth eloquence that impresses you so much. But when I do open my mouth, I at least know what I’m talking about. We haven’t kept anything back. We let you in on everything.

I wonder, did I make a bad mistake in proclaiming God’s Message to you without asking for something in return, serving you free of charge so that you wouldn’t be inconvenienced by me? It turns out that the other churches paid my way so that you could have a free ride. Not once during the time I lived among you did anyone have to lift a finger to help me out. My needs were always supplied by the believers from Macedonia province. I was careful never to be a burden to you, and I never will be, you can count on it. With Christ as my witness, it’s a point of honor with me, and I’m not going to keep it quiet just to protect you from what the neighbors will think. It’s not that I don’t love you; God knows I do. I’m just trying to keep things open and honest between us.

 

Gospel: Matthew 6:7-15

“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:

Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best—
    as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty!
    Yes. Yes. Yes.

 “In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.

 

Prayer

Lord our God,
you know what we need
even before we can ask you.
We are sure of this
on account of the human experience
of Jesus your Son, who was one of us.
And so we pray you:
Don’t take it amiss
when we use too many words
to cover the emptiness of our hearts,
and teach us through your Spirit in us
to ask for the things that matter,
you and your kingdom,
that will last for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:

“How do you know my name?”

Today we are invited to reflect on our relationship with God. God is both Father and Mother. But human language lacks an intimate word that is inclusive of both the masculine and feminine. It was easy for Jesus to refer to God as Father, because he lived in a highly patriarchal society, and his listeners would understand a Father better than another terminology.
In using the term, Our Father, Jesus captured the intimacy between God and himself and the sense of his total dependence on his Father. More than the gender of God, what Jesus wants his disciples to know of God is that intimacy, with the tender, gentle, intuitive, intimately sharing, trusting and unconditional love and mercy – and surprisingly we notice that all these characteristics are are so feminine! Therefore, in our personal prayer with God in the “private room” of our heart, God is the life-giving Father and Mother who is so passionately in love with us. And this Father-Mother is our common source of life. By addressing God “Our Father”, Jesus also points our relationship to one another as brothers and sisters, as the children of the family of God.
This prayer contains seven requests – three of them in honour of God: that his name be sanctified, respected, praised; may his kingdom spread throughout the world and fill the hearts of all people; may his divine will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. In the world there are people who despise the name of God and many others do not even know Him. We pray that the whole world will know God’s name, which is to say, to know and recognize Him as the Lord God and thus this world becomes the World of God, where all God’s children can repeat with the Blessed Mother, her famous prayer: “Let it be done to me according to your Word.”
And then there are four requests on our behalf: the first request to the Father is for food for each day. Israel had the experience of God feeding them with the Manna in the desert – sufficient for their daily necessity and nothing more. Perhaps this emphasises our total dependence on the providence of God.
Thinking about our mistakes and sins, we ask our Father for forgiveness and indeed promise to forgive people who did us wrong too. We have no strength to fight the devil, and hence want God to keep us safe from the Evil One – that threatens us in God’s family, and in our relationship with our friends and neighbours. The Lord’s prayer sums up the entire gospel.
A few years ago I came across a child’s version of the Lord’s prayer. The child who was not used to the old form of English, could not understand the usage – “hallowed be thy name” … and started saying, “how do you know my name?” Yes ! Is it not beautiful that our Father in Heaven knows us by our name?

 

Video available on Youtube: “how do you know my name?”