“Lord, Teach Us To Pray”

The readings today invite us to reflect again on the call to pray and on the way to pray.  Many of us will be enjoying a break, a holiday or at least a quieter time over the Summer when there is ideal opportunity to redouble our efforts of prayer.

In the first reading, we see Abraham interceding on behalf of the people, appealing to God.  If we took the reading absolutely literally, it might tempt us to think that prayer is a sort of bargaining with God, or even a twisting of his arm.  But God cannot be bargained with.

It is more the case that the reading reveals God’s responsiveness to prayer and to the way that Abraham finds God’s mercy more and more.  It shows a God who wants us to repent and be saved, not a God who is seeking to punish and destroy.

In the Gospel reading, one of the disciples asks Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.”  In response, Jesus teaches the disciples with the Lord’s Prayer.  And he continues with a remarkable reassurance, “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

This weekend in the homily I will be sharing, by permission, the experiences of about seven parishioners who have written briefly about the way that God has answered their prayers and the way that God has revealed himself or made himself present in prayer.  I was so inspired by these testimonies and I trust that you will be as well.  

God bless, Fr Kevin.