GOD WANTS ALL TO BE SAVED

October 6, Wednesday

TWENTY-SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

      God is a saving God. He calls all people to salvation in Jesus Christ, and he does not discriminate or segregate. His kingdom is open to all people, all races, all cultures, all languages, and all walks of life. And those who are most in need are given preference. For he is the Father of all and cares for those for whom people do not care. Do we do enough to bring his Son to all? Do we open the Christian community to all, without any discrimination? Or is there a bit of Jonah alive in us?

      The disciples must have admired Jesus when he prayed, for when he had finished, they asked him to teach them to pray. This is indeed what we too should ask him in this eucharist, that our prayer may be wide and deep like his, giving honor to the Father and bringing to him the stream of the needs and concerns of all. And like him too, in our prayers we try not to bend God’s will to ours, but ours to God’s will and Intercessions.

 

First Reading: Jonah 4:1-11

Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at God, “God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!

“So, God, if you won’t kill them, kill me! I’m better off dead!”

God said, “What do you have to be angry about?”

But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.

God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.

But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: “I’m better off dead!”

Then God said to Jonah, “What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?”

Jonah said, “Plenty of right. It’s made me angry enough to die!”

God said, “What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?”

 

Gospel: Luke 11:1-4

One day he was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, “Master, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”

So he said, “When you pray, say,

Father,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”

 

Prayer

God, you are tender and compassionate,
slow to anger, rich in graciousness,
and reluctant to punish.
You want all people to share in your love.
God, make our love as worldwide as yours.
Make us grateful for all you have given us
through your Son Jesus Christ,
that the zeal of a missionary Church
may gather everyone into your kingdom,
and that all may call you Father,
for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:

We dare to call Him “Father”

The Gospel of Luke presented seven occasions when Jesus prayed. Luke also wrote five prayers of Jesus addressed to the Father, including the prayer that he taught his disciples. Luke presents the importance of prayer in the life of Jesus – He was in constant conversation with the Father and his prayers were all expressions of a deep relationship between the Son and the Father.

The early Church regarded this prayer as the ultimate form of profession of faith, before the Creed was formulated. In the early Church, the catechumens directly learned it from the mouth of the bishop. It was the surprise, the gift he gave to those who had applied for baptism and were accepted to be Christians. He would teach the Lord’s Prayer to the catechumens eight days before their baptism, and during the celebration of the Easter Vigil, they recited it for the first time together with their communities.

God as the Father is a the gift of Jesus. No other religion address their god as father. We dare to call God, Our Father because that is how Jesus introduced Him to us. He taught us to approach him without fear, but with confidence and love. Even when we behave like the prodigal son and run away from his presence, we have the assurance that the Father’s House is open for us and His embrace awaits us.

Hallowed be thy name” (v. 2). It is the first greeting that emerges on the lips of a Christian when he turns to the Father. When we pray: ‘hallowed be your name,’ we declare to the Father our faith and certainty that all our prayers will be heard, and promise him not to profane his Holy Name through our infidelities.

The Kingdom which is the centre of the preaching of Jesus is the “reign of God”. He says: “But if I cast out demons by the finger God would not this mean that the Kingdom of God has come upon you?” (Lk 11:20) and he proclaims: “Kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21). We continue to pray for the coming of the Kingdom, as it must develop and grow in every person as a seed of goodness, of love, of reconciliation, of peace.

The Lord teaches us to pray for our daily bread. Bread is both a gift of God and fruit of man’s sweat and toil. In order to have our bread blessed by the Lord, ensure it is the fruit of our hard work and it does not contain the tears of the exploited poor.

Reciting the Lord’s Prayer is a constant check on oneself, because we cannot pray it with sincerity if I think only of my own bread, forgetting the poor, and neglecting social justice.

 

Video available on Youtube: We dare to call Him “Father”