Walking with Jesus: Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

For Sunday, July 24, 2022

Genesis 18:20-32; Colossians 3:12-14; Luke 11:1-13

Am I comfortable with my prayer life? I think many people hope that they are praying correctly. Many people consciously or unconsciously feel that they are not praying enough, so they add more devotions, novenas or prayers from the back of Holy Cards. We have a tendency today to feel that more is better. It comes from the custom that if we “flood the Lord with words” He will give in and respond positively to my pleas. So the question remains: Is more better?

Other times we feel, or people suggest, that it's just finding the right prayer … the one that God will definitely hear and respond to just the way we want and the way we need Him to respond. If it doesn’t happen immediately, some might keep praying that prayer more and more. Some feel that if He doesn’t answer in the affirmative … well, He just doesn’t like me because of something I’ve done in the past. Some devotions … prayers … novenas insist that we must say them for X amount of days or X amount of times … and that we are not to break the cycle. “This must be done for X amount of days …. weeks … on this particular day … for this amount of time. Or my petition will not be answered!”

Is this how we feel our God is? Do we feel God is not concerned with us unless we do prayers in such a specific format or these days? Is our God a mathematician or a lover? Is our God a project manager or a God who wants to help us grow closer to Him and to be with Him forever in heaven? Does our God consistently create roadblocks so that very few will be able to go to heaven? How does God lead us to heaven? Is it His way or the highway?

“Great is the Lord and worthy of much praise. … The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. The Lord is good to all, compassionate toward all your works … the Lord is just in all His ways.” [Psalm 145]

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might have life through Him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet if we love one another, God remains in us and His love is brought to perfection in us. [1 John 4:7-12]

In the first reading, Abraham struggles to trust in the words God has spoken to him. He is journeying toward Sodom and Gomorrah to confirm reports about the sinfulness of these two cities. Does God care about them? Will God help them and bring them closer to Him? Abraham’s son, Lot, lives there and he is worried that God will destroy him and his family. So he is negotiating for God’s mercy. The dialogue shows that we must trust in God’s ways. Lot and his daughters survive. God’s mercy is greater than Abraham imagined.

The Gospel focuses on the Lord’s prayer along with two stories intended to encourage everyone, us included, to persevere and not become discouraged in our prayers.  Prayer was essential to Jesus’ disciples. Like all good Jews they could sing the psalms by heart. They sang these in the synagogues and temple rituals and during every sabbath. Three times a day they recited the Amidah: three paragraphs of praise, 13 of petition and another three of thanksgiving. They had specific rubrics: standing at attention, feet firm, facing Jerusalem. But in spite of these rich prayer times, they still wanted Jesus to teach them how to pray as the other rabbis did.

Abba was the word Jesus used for father. He would have addressed St. Joseph and the rabbis as Abba, as did all the children of Nazareth. Abba is translated as “my father,” an address of closeness and deep respect. It combines both “daddy” and “sir,” which are intimate and reverent at the same time. How do I pray to God? What do I call Him?

So I reflect on:

• When I pray do I expect to be loved … to be heard … do I put myself in God’s caring hands?
• We get discouraged, especially if our prayers are not answered as we like. Remember the Holy Spirit is constantly moving me to encourage me, to urge me and beg me to keep trying … to keep praying. Do I let God love me in this?
  

Sacred Space 2022 states:

“Heavenly Father, each day I depend upon You. I confidently ask for daily bread for my family and myself. And You generously keep on giving. I thank You also for Your loving forgiveness when I disappoint You. Give me a forgiving heart when others disappoint me.”