HOW TO PRAY

 

Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Fr. Ugochukwu Ugwoke, ISch

Scriptural Texts: Genesis 18:20-32, Colossians 2:12-14, Luke 11:1-13

 

In the gospel reading of this seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we read that the disciples of Jesus came to him after he was done praying and asked him to teach them how to pray in the same way as John taught his disciples (Luke 11:1). The disciples came to Jesus with this particular request because they had often seen Jesus at prayer. They knew Jesus as a man of prayer and they wanted Jesus to teach them how he himself prayed so that they too can communicate with God and relate with Him as Jesus did. The lesson we learn from this is that in most cases, the things that people ask us to teach them are the things they often find us doing. If the things that people usually ask you to teach them are bad things, it is mainly because they know you are skilled in bad things. We should think about that!

In response to the request of the disciples, Jesus taught them a set of prayer which has come to be known today as the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is both a prayer and a teaching on how to pray. As such, in giving them that prayer, Jesus was also giving them a lesson on how to pray. The prayer is short but deep. It contains the basic elements of a Christian prayer: worship and petition, and the basic dispositions required of a praying Christian: submission and surrender, childlike trust and confidence, obedience to God’s will and forgiveness (Luke 11:2-4).

In the opening part of the prayer, Jesus invites us to address God in such a tender, affectionate and intimate way as our Father (Abba in Aramaic). Abba signifies the close, intimate relationship of a father and his child, as well as the childlike trust that a child puts in his father. You will recall that it is with this same word that Jesus addressed God in that most difficult time of his life and mission- at the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). Jesus allows us call God Father because he (Jesus) has shared his sonship with us by his grace. God is our loving Father who cares for us and who provides for our needs. If God therefore is our Father, then, we should never behave like orphans.

The succeeding part of the prayer teaches us that in prayer, we look beyond ourselves and focus more on God’s purpose for our world and our lives. In prayer, our primary focus is to be on God rather than on ourselves. To pray is to go out of oneself towards God. Prayer is primarily about what God wants rather than what we want. After the opening petitions which focus on God, the remaining petitions have to do with ourselves but not so much with ourselves as individuals but with ourselves in relation to others. The language of the second part of Jesus’ prayer is us and our rather than me and my. By these, Jesus is teaching us that prayer is always a going out of ourselves towards God and others.

The remaining part of today’s gospel assures us that if we pray in the spirit of the Lord’s Prayer, our prayer will certainly be answered. If we ask in that spirit, we will receive; if we seek in that spirit, we will find; and if we knock in that spirit, the door to the heart of God will be opened unto us. God is our Father, and just as a biological father would not ignore his son if he asked for food and a man would not ignore the desperate pleas for help of his friend who knocked on his door at midnight, so also does God our Father never ignore our prayers. Let us be persistent in prayer following after the example of Abraham in the first reading. 

Today, we need to ask Jesus not just to teach us how to pray but to teach us how to live out in our daily lives, the prayer he taught his disciples. Today is a good day for us to evaluate and revive our prayer life. May we never get tired of asking, seeking, and knocking.