Friends, please do not miss that last line of today’s Gospel: "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?"
The key is to pray actively, as Jesus says. Ask, seek, and knock and it will be given to you.
But why pray at all? Is it to inform God of what we and our neighbors, and the world need? But God knows everything. Are we praying to change God? To bend Him to our will, and our plans, and our agenda?
Do prayers get answered? Is it true that the family that prays together stays together? Or A world at prayer is a world at peace?
Or More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of?Or Prayer never knows defeat? Or Prayer changes things? Are these pearls of wisdom all true?
Jesus in the final sentence of today’s Gospel says the Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.
And what does the Holy Spirit do? He comes to us to teach us how to pray. He helps us understand that our prayers are not so much to change God but to begin or deepen a relationship with God.
The Holy Spirit comes to sanctify, bless, and redirect all our plans, our agenda, our wants and desires transforming them transforming them into something grander called God’s will.
A sure mark of Christian maturity is that prayer is not seen as a practice we do at special moments to seek nearness to God. Rather prayer is who we are at all times. It is a ceaseless state of adoration in which we direct the words and meanings of our prayers dedicating our first and last thoughts to God.
I think of Mother Teresa of Kolkata, who could look you straight in the eye and see into your soul because to pray always in the Holy Spirit is who she is. Father Peyton was always praying that is why you would never see him without a Rosary wrapped around his fist. The Rosary is this powerful tool that helps us to pray always. It comes with us everywhere.
We can pray it in a check-out line at the market. We can pray it in the car, in bed at night. God is always helping us in prayer through the Holy Spirit, liberating us and bending our wills to the wonder and beauty of his will and his plans for us and our families.
Amen.
- To view Rosary prayer and Mass streaming live, please visit our Facebook page at 11:30 am EST, Monday – Friday. Please invite your loved ones to join us too! (You don't need a Facebook account to view.)
