Jesus said to his disciples, “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
Jesus’ disciples asked him how to pray, and he prayed the Our Father. In a parable, he then compares prayer with the Father as one asking a friend for a loaf of bread at midnight. Just as his persistence results in his receiving the bread, so the disciple receives what he asks from the Father: “And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
The first and second readings show how God hears our prayers. Abraham asks God to show mercy to Sodom and Gomorrah if only ten of its inhabitants were innocent. In Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, he says we are brought to new life through baptism and forgiven of all transgressions. The refrain from Psalm 138 is “Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.” God, help me understand that in the account of you in today’s readings, you give us not only the very words your son used to pray to you but also the message of your mercy that spans generation after generation.
God calls to me today to rest in Him, to recline at Jesus’ side as the beloved disciple John did. It is a day of rest. Let me make a worthy dwelling for God in myself so that He can rest in me as I rest in Him.
Today I want to make myself present to others, not in a way that pesters them but makes my availability clear. I want to gather my family together and pray the rosary. God, if I ask for your grace to do these two things today, I know it will be done.