17th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. The Lord’s Prayer, which St. Thomas Aquinas calls “the most perfect of prayers,” is at the heart of today's Gospel (Luke 11: 1-13). St. Augustine tells us that “I do not think you will find any holy prayer in Scripture that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer.” Ask, and it will be given to you, Our Lord continues, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

This morning's Vigil’s reading on prayer is from a homily by St. Bede the Venerable:

Praying Hands (Albrecht Dürer)

We should consider most seriously and attentively what these words of the Lord may mean for us, for they warn that not the idle and feckless but those who ask, seek, and knock will receive, find, and have the door opened to them. We must therefore ask for entry into the kingdom by prayer, seek it by upright living, and knock at its door by perseverance. Merely to ask verbally is not enough; we must also diligently seek to discover how to live so as to be worthy of obtaining what we ask for. We know this from our Savior’s words: Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my heavenly Father.

There is a need, then, for constant and unflagging prayer. Let us fall upon our knees with tears before our God and Maker; and that we may deserve a hearing, let us consider carefully how he who made us wishes us to live, and what he has commanded us to do. Let us seek the Lord and his strength; let us constantly seek his face.

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

Today's Gospel, taken from Luke 10: 38-42, tells a familiar story: Martha receives Jesus into her house, and is annoyed when her sister Mary sits at Jesus's feet, listening to him. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work my myself?” Jesus responds by telling Martha that “you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

The two women are often used as symbols of the active and contemplative life. Here's a commentary on them by St. Gregory the Great:

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Johannes Vermeer)

These two lives are well symbolised by the two women Martha and Mary.... Note carefully that the part of Martha was not blamed, but that of Mary was praised. He didn’t say that Mary had chosen the good part: he said it was the best, in order to show that Martha’s part was still good. He made it clear what he meant by the “best” part of Mary when he specified that it would not be taken away from her. For the active life comes to an end with the death of the body.

...On the other hand, we must realise that although it is normal and good for the active life to pass over into the contemplative life, often the soul is driven from contemplation to active works of charity. Precisely the contemplative vision calls us back to activity, for it understands that the labor of good works must never be abandoned while we are in this life.

2nd Sunday of Lent, Year C

In his Angelus talk in St. Peter's Square several years ago, Pope Francis spoke about today’s Gospel, in which Jesus “took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart” (Mt 17:1). Here are some of his words:

Mosaic, Church of the Transfiguration, Mount Tabor, Israel

The mountain in the Bible represents a place close to God and an intimate encounter with Him, a place of prayer where one stands in the presence of the Lord. There up on the mount, Jesus is revealed to the three disciples as transfigured, luminescent and most beautiful. And then Moses and Elijah appear and converse with Him. His face is so resplendent and his robes so white that Peter, awe-struck, wishes to stay there, as if to stop time. Suddenly from on high the voice of the Father resounds proclaiming Jesus to be his most beloved Son, saying “listen to him” (v. 5). This word is important! Our Father said this to these Apostles, and says it to us as well: “listen to Jesus, because he is my beloved Son”. This week let us keep this word in our minds and in our hearts: “listen to Jesus!” And the Pope is not saying this, God the Father says it to everyone: to me, to you, to everyone, all people! It is like an aid for going forward on the path of Lent. “Listen to Jesus!” Don’t forget....

From the event of the Transfiguration I would like to take two significant elements that can be summed up in two words: ascent and descent. We all need to go apart, to ascend the mountain in a space of silence, to find ourselves and better perceive the voice of the Lord. This we do in prayer. But we cannot stay there! Encounter with God in prayer inspires us anew to “descend the mountain” and return to the plain where we meet many brothers weighed down by fatigue, sickness, injustice, ignorance, poverty both material and spiritual. To these brothers in difficulty, we are called to bear the fruit of that experience with God, by sharing the grace we have received. And this is curious. When we hear the Word of Jesus, when we listen to the Word of Jesus and carry it in our heart, this Word grows. Do you know how it grows? By giving it to the other! The Word of Christ grows in us when we proclaim it, when we give it to others! And this is what Christian life is. It is a mission for the whole Church, for all the baptized, for us all: listen to Jesus and offer him to others.

3rd Sunday of Lent, Year B

Today's Gospel, taken from John 2:13-25, tells the dramatic story of Jesus driving the moneychangers from the temple. “God’s temple is holy,”  and, says St. Augustine:

Expulsion of the Money changers from the Temple, Giotto

You are that temple: all you who believe in Christ and whose belief makes you love him. Real  belief in Christ means love of Christ: it is not the belief of the demons who believed without loving and therefore despite their belief said: “What do you want with us, Son of God?” No; let our belief be full of love for him we believe in, so that instead of saying: “What do you want with us,” we may rather say: We belong to you, you have redeemed us. 

To pray in God’s temple we must pray in the peace of the Church, in the unity of the body of Christ, which is made up of many believers throughout the world. When we pray in this temple our prayers are heard, because whoever prays in the peace of the Church prays in spirit and in truth.

The temple of God, this body of Christ, this assembly of believers, has but one voice, and sings the psalms as though it were but one person. If we wish, it is our voice; if we wish, we may listen to the singer with our ears and ourselves sing in our hearts. But if we choose not to do so it will mean that we are like buyers and sellers, preoccupied with our own interests.

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

Pray always and do not lose heart is the message Jesus gives his disciples today (Luke 18:1-8). He illustrates it with the parable of a widow and an unjust judge. The widow is persistent and the judge finally grants her request: Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.

Here are some thoughts on persistent prayer from Pope Emeritus Benedict, given during a homily on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 2012: 

Praying without ceasing means never losing contact with God, letting ourselves be constantly touched by him in the depths of our hearts and, in this way, being penetrated by his light. Only someone who actually knows God can lead others to God. Only someone who leads people to God leads them along the path of life.

The restless heart, … echoing Saint Augustine, is the heart that is ultimately satisfied with nothing less than God, and in this way becomes a loving heart. Our heart is restless for God and remains so, even if every effort is made today, by means of most effective anaesthetizing methods, to deliver people from this unrest. But not only are we restless for God: God’s heart is restless for us. God is waiting for us. He is looking for us. He knows no rest either, until he finds us. God’s heart is restless, and that is why he set out on the path towards us – to Bethlehem, to Calvary, from Jerusalem to Galilee and on to the very ends of the earth. God is restless for us, he looks out for people willing to “catch” his unrest, his passion for us, people who carry within them the searching of their own hearts and at the same time open themselves to be touched by God’s search for us.... [L]et yourselves be touched by God’s unrest, so that God’s longing for man may be fulfilled.

Solemnity of St. John the Baptist

Today the Church celebrates the the Solemnity of the great forerunner of Christ, St. John the Baptist. This great witness to Jesus, this great martyr, is an example to us all for many reasons. Here is part of a moving homily by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in which he talks about the place of prayer in his life.

St. John the Baptist, De Gray Book of Hours

We see this great figure, this force in the Passion, in resistance to the powerful. We wonder: what gave birth to this life, to this interiority so strong, so upright, so consistent, spent so totally for God in preparing the way for Jesus? The answer is simple: it was born from the relationship with God, from prayer, which was the thread that guided him throughout his existence. John was the divine gift for which his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth had been praying for so many years; a great gift, humanly impossible to hope for, because they were both advanced in years and Elizabeth was barren; yet nothing is impossible to God. The announcement of this birth happened precisely in the place of prayer, in the temple of Jerusalem, indeed it happened when Zechariah had the great privilege of entering the holiest place in the temple to offer incense to the Lord. 

John the Baptist’s birth was also marked by prayer: the Benedictus, the hymn of joy, praise and thanksgiving which Zechariah raises to the Lord and which we recite every morning in Lauds, exalts God’s action in history and prophetically indicates the mission of their son John: to go before the Son of God made flesh to prepare his ways. 

The entire existence of the Forerunner of Jesus was nourished by his relationship with God, particularly the period he spent in desert regions. The desert regions are places of temptation but also where man acquires a sense of his own poverty because once deprived of material support and security, he understands that the only steadfast reference point is God himself. John the Baptist, however, is not only a man of prayer, in permanent contact with God, but also a guide in this relationship. The Evangelist Luke, recalling the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, the Our Father, notes that the request was formulated by the disciples in these words: “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his own disciples.”

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

From a homily by St. John Chrysostom:

The Canaanite woman whose daughter was tormented by a devil came to Christ begging his help. Most urgently she cried out: Lord, have pity on me. My daughter is grievously tormented by a devil. Notice that the woman was a foreigner, a gentile, a person from outside the Jewish community. What was she then but a dog, unworthy to obtain her request? It is not fair, said the Lord, to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs. Nevertheless, by perseverance she became worthy; for Christ not only admitted her to the same noble rank as the children, dog though she was, but he also sent her away with high praise, saying: Woman, you have great faith. Let it be as you desire. Now when Christ says: You have great faith, you need seek no further proof of the woman’s greatness of soul. You see that an unworthy woman became worthy by perseverance.

Jesus exorcising the Canaanite Woman's daughter,
from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 15th c.

Now would you like proof that we shall gain more by praying ourselves than by asking others to pray for us? The woman cried out and the disciples went to Christ and said: Give her what she wants – she is shouting after us. And he said to them: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But when the woman herself, still crying out, came to him and said: That is true, sir, and yet the dogs eat what falls from their master’s table, then he granted her request, saying: Let it be as you desire.

Have you understood? When the disciples entreated him the Lord put them off, but when the woman herself cried out begging for this favour he granted it. And at the beginning when she first made her request, he did not answer, but after she had come to him once, twice, and a third time, he gave her what she desired. By this he was teaching us that he had withheld the gift not to drive her away, but to make that woman’s patience an example for all of us.

Now that we have learned these lessons, let us not despair even if we are guilty of sin and unworthy of any favour. We know that we can make ourselves worthy by perseverance.