REFLECTION
There is this human tendency we all have of avoiding persons and experiences which make us feel bad about ourselves. The opposite is true as well. Overweight persons do not easily look at themselves in a mirror nor take advantage of stepping on scales. The more shapely can spend much time doing both. We all desire a more positive experience of ourselves, but seem to always have a certain something or certain someones who can inferiorate us.
As we prepare for the next celebration of the Eucharist we might pray with just how attending actively the Eucharistic liturgy makes us feel. We might reflect upon how we experience ourselves upon entering the worship space as compared with how we feel upon leaving. Faith is not a feeling, but the central mystery of our faith is offered to us as a positive gesture and direct gift to each of us. We can also pray these days with the joys of those other gifts which God gives us to assist our faith walk.
REFLECTION
In last-week’s First Reading from Genesis, Abraham had a visit from three special and mysterious persons. Abraham welcomed them and Sarah, his wife, heard that she, now in her advanced years, would have a son within one year.
Our First Reading follows directly after those verses of promise. We hear that one of the visiting trio is the Lord, and the other two are eventually revealed as angels. They go down or over to the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, where there has been a whole lot of serious sinning going on. The Lord and Abraham stay at a distance and Abraham, who apparently is quite familiar with these two sin-cities, makes a quite moving plea on behalf of the innocent, yes, but the guilty as well. Herein we are rubbing up against the ancient biblical question about individual and communal responsibilities for favor or punishment.
Abraham becomes the first advocate for humanity. There is the great countdown checking out how merciful and just, God might be. Might there be even “ten” just persons? Looking forward down the centuries we see that One Just Man is God’s eternal answer, “Yes!”.
I had a person many years ago, ask me if I could teach him a sense of humor. He was serious about the question and a little more serious about life than I was and am. I had to break it to him gently that humor is not an acquired or learned sense. I asked him where he learned to be so serious. He didn’t think that was very funny.
In today’s Gospel we find the friends of Jesus asking Him to teach them the sense of prayer. John was known to have been instructing his followers about the life activities and self-denials necessary to be people of prayer. John’s group was penitential and in great expectation of the Messiah. Jesus lays out in words the personal relationship that He has with the God He addresses as Father. The aspects of this prayer and relationship are that God is the essence of holiness. God’s holiness is moving into this world and into the human experience. This kingdom is based in God’s being pure love and in time, that love will center the kingdom in heaven and on earth. God’s love is offered daily, momently, as the bread that came down from heaven in the desert. This love-relationship is forgiving and in the kingdom, forgiveness will be shared. There is another kingdom of evil and God’s love will be given to resist it. Jesus will preach these elements and live them out through His walking our ways in His time.
The Gospel ends with some quite homey references to how friends and parents are so good in giving to their children, what is good for them. There is the very attractive idea that if we knock, the door will be opened, if we ask, we will receive. We all have had experiences of the knocking and asking without the response we wanted. Jesus certainly got the attention of those who heard this. He was asking them for the faith He had in the loving providence of His Father.
I have had many people come asking for me to teach them about prayer and how to pray and a sense of prayer. What I have learned is that I am always learning myself about prayer. I am not sure I can teach someone else to pray which is exactly their kind of prayer. I can hardly explain how I pray. Prayer is more than words. It is a relationship which is experienced and expressed as personally as the person praying can be. There is a sense of security offered by saying lots of holy words and for some that security is good prayer for them. We have to be who we are in any relationship and that is what Jesus is offering us.
Lately I have experienced prayer without expectations. Any human relationship which is held together by high expectations cannot endure. I have found a freedom from learned-expectations about how I “should” feel and “should” respond. I have found myself saying to God at the end of prayer-time, “Whatever You think prayer is, that’s what I just did.” I save problem-solving, strategizing, and worrying for after. It seems to me that the fruit of the prayer-relationship is the prayerfulness with which I experience the day’s events. As in any relationship, if all there is, is asking and knocking, well, that sounds like a business. We can stay away from simple, being in prayer, because it doesn’t work, doesn’t produce a better me. Prayer is being personal without being selfish. I wonder if having a sense of humor has something to do with a sense of prayer
“O bless the Lord, my soul, and remember all his kindness.” Ps. 103, 2