25.07 2004 17th Sunday Ordinary Season - Year C
First Reading: Genesis 18, 20-21, 23-32 Psalm 137
Second Reading: Colossians 2, 12-14 Gospel Reading: Luke 11, 1-13
From today's readings we can compare Abraham's and Jesus' prayers. Abraham
has three angels as guests and in conversing with them he talks of God. Hearing
of the fate that awaits Sodom and Gomorrah, he tries to intercede, to pray.
He feels more merciful than God: he proposes doing something that God would
like to do! He asks God to save the cities as there are perhaps fifty or forty
or thirty good people there. Abraham does not have the courage to ask for salvation
if there were less than ten good people in the cities. But we know what God
did. Not finding anyone he sent the only pure one and for love of him, He gave
everybody the possibility of salvation. This possibility is realized in baptism,
as St Paul says. With baptism we begin a new life, a different, holy life, a
life that is pleasing to God and that brings harmony and peace to men and women.
In this way we not only save ourselves, but we contribute to saving everyone,
to changing the world, which truly needs to be changed.
How to change the world? Our conversion, essential to baptism! How to convert?
Pray. And not only; learn how to pray! Abraham prayed like the best of men,
but his prayer is weak, for he wishes to change God's plans as if there were
better ones. Let us learn from Jesus how to pray. Jesus, the one who saves the
world can teach us the true prayer that is able to convert us.
Often when we pray like Abraham, we think we have to convert God, to convince
Him to do what we think is useful or necessary. Is Jesus' prayer the same? When
his disciples saw him praying, they realized that they were not yet able to
pray and they asked him to teach them! Should we not do the same, perhaps?
Jesus responded with the "Our Father". He would certainly not propose
a formula to recite in order to obtain something from God. He proposes a prayer
that is able to change our hearts, to bring them closer to our Father's and
to make them similar to his own.
The first part of his prayer leads us to consider our Father with love, to call
Him with the name of our Father to remind us that He loves us, that He gave
us life and that He, therefore, feels responsible for us. There is no need to
explain anything to Him. Jesus tells us that He loves us and that He knows what
we need.
Reading the Prophet Ezekiel we discover that God wants to sanctify His name
among the people, that is, to become known by everyone, even by the pagans,
as the only God, who loves everyone truly and faithfully. He sanctifies His
name in gathering together His people, purifying them and giving His children
new hearts. We, therefore, in saying "hallowed be Thy name" declare
ourselves ready to be gathered into His Church and to be purified of idolatries,
of those things that are short lived and of little use and to accept a new heart!
We offer ourselves to collaborate with His Kingdom with a generous filial obedience!
This first part takes our attention away from our desires and what we think
we need in order to cultivate a new path according to God's plans, freeing ourselves
in this way from our egoism.
The second part of the prayer helps us to progress in our conversion. Nobody
asks anything for themselves, but for "us", meaning the disciples
and the Church. We ask for the bread necessary for a united Church that can
truly fulfil it's mission in the world. What is this bread? It can only be the
Eucharist, the bread which innerly unites and purifies. This bread is the Holy
Spirit which we receive when we participate in the Eucharist, the Spirit which
makes us brothers, able to be aware of the spiritual and material needs of others,
of brothers in faith and of those who do not yet pray the "Our Father".
And when we ask for forgiveness, we do not ask it for ourselves alone, but for
all our brothers and sisters, for the sins of each person weighs on all of us,
as in a family. The Church is a family, a family which forgives, and has always
forgiven. Steven forgave Saul, and since then the Church has forgiven her enemies:
we can say this with joy to the Father who will then show His mercy to us. Evil
tries to tempt our brothers and tries to divide the Church. We pray to God for
the strength to resist, to remain united and firm in our faith!
Praying these words given to us by Jesus we can progress in our conversion,
in our walk towards the Father, in the building of His Kingdom! Our world today,
so similar to the city of Sodom, may be saved from destruction, because we the
Church are here holding closely to the presence of Jesus, the Son, the Pure
One: for his sake the world will be saved!