PRAYER; ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE

 

Some further thoughts on PRAYER, from reflections on Matthew 7; 7-12, the Gospel for Thursday of 1st Week in Lent.  

 

 

"Ask and it will be given to you ..."  (Mt 7:7)   This passage can be extremely unsettling when we ask and do not receive what we ask for.  The promise seems to be clear.   But there are times when our prayers are not answered in the way we are asking, and very difficult things happen.   We seem to be handed a stone instead of bread, a snake instead of a fish.   If we would not do this to our children,  why would God do it to us?  We ask to be kept safe,  but we are broken open.  Only slowly have I realized that it has been in that breaking open that I have come closer to God.  It may not have been the bread I had asked for,  but it was the Bread of Life."      (Patricia Livingston in LIVING WITH CHRIST daily meditation for Feb. 26, 2015.)

 

 

"The sense of the Lord's words in the Greek language of the Gospel is to "keep on asking",  to "keep on knocking", and to "keep on praying".  This is not a recommendation to bombard heaven since the Lord told us not to rattle on and on in prayer.   Rather,  He asks us to keep the attitude of prayer so that we can recognize the answer when it comes in an unconventional guise.  Prayer attunes us to discern God's response in the events of our life.  Perhaps we limit the kind of response we expect God to give to our prayers.  When it is answered in a way different from what we expect,  we can fail to recognize it.  If we keep the attitude of prayer, we will find that the Father does answer us in His own way."   (Fr. S. Joseph Krempa in  DAILY HOMILIES  (Seasonal)  p. 69.)

 

 

"In the Gospel,  Jesus tells us in a number of ways that God always answers prayer.  The tone of Jesus' words is not one encouraging us to lay out in specific detail for what we are praying (e.g., the model, unit number, size, and color of something we want), but the tone is simply that we trust God.   We need confidence in God and confidence that God will do what is best for us whether it's what we pray for or not.  Possibly,  more prayer should be about asking to be in tune with God rather than asking for specific items which we think we absolutely need.   Prayer doesn't really change things around us like altering the laws of meteorology or physics;  it more likely changes us.    Only persistence in prayer and regular practice of prayer can teach us how life-changing prayer really is."    (Fr. Don Talafous in HOMILIES for Weekdays - Year I,  p. 35/36.)