As we meditate upon the Liturgy of the Word for this 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time, let us continue our reflections on prayer. In our first reading, from the book of Genesis, the same mysterious three visitors who promised Abraham and Sarah a son, are now drawing near to Sodom.
Abraham comes near, and begins his dialogue with the Lord. It’s important to remember is that all Christian prayer: meditative prayer, silent adoration, the Rosary, reading Sacred Scripture, or liturgical prayer – all Christian prayer – is an encounter between persons.
The Persons of the Trinity – those Persons with a capital “P” - and the person or persons praying. In prayer, the Christian does not aim to be assumed by, or to meld into, or to be bowled over by some impersonal energy, force, or being. We do not lose our personhood in prayer. Our prayer is always a meeting – an encounter – between persons; something as simple and yet as profound as making the sign of the Cross at the beginning of this liturgy – is already an encounter between persons. The Almighty and Ever-living God, in His humility, pays attention to our simple, sinful, and weak personhood. As our psalm mentioned, “though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly”.
A few more thoughts about prayer. If you make a plan to remain for 15 minutes before the Lord, try to be faithful to this time. Halfway through, you might receive feelings of joy, and peace, and you might be tempted to stop. What is important to remember is that God’s nearness is not measured by our feelings. Sometimes we don’t “feel” God at all, and yet He is very close. If you’ve promised yourself to pray for 15 minutes, stay for 15 minutes, because there might be a special grace waiting for you – at the end of the prayer period. I remember hearing the testimony and the question of someone who recently converted to Christianity. That person was upset, because at the beginning of his conversion, he had had great feelings, vivid emotions of joy and peace. Slowly, those emotions were passing, and he began to ask the question, “am I doing something wrong? Has the Lord forsaken me, or have I forsaken the Lord?”. My brothers and sisters, if we don’t find prayer as spiritually rewarding as we did in the past, this may be because of our sins, especially mortal sin. Mortal sin, as the Catechism states, “destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him” (Catechism, 1855). Notice what the Lord says in the first reading – God speaks of the “very grave” sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. And yet, some Catholics whodo practice their faith, go to go confession regularly, participate in Sunday Mass, still do not have prayer as rewarding as in the past. Are they doing something wrong? My brothers and sisters, Jesus may take away the pleasant feelings, emotions, experiences – because He does not want us to become too attached to those feelings, emotions, experiences. God desires, as hard as this may sound, that we growin our desire for God in and for Himself – and not for any kind of possession or feeling, good as it may be.
In the last part of this homily, we turn to the Lord’s Prayer – the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, as described in the Gospel of Luke. Pope Francis, in his first encyclical Lumen Fidei, gives us these reflections on the Our Father: “Here Christians learn to share in Christ’s own spiritual experience and to see all things through his eyes. From him who is light from light, the only-begotten Son of the Father, we come to know God and can thus kindle in others the desire to draw near to him” (Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis, 46). So, by praying the Our Father, we glimpse the world, we see the universe, as Jesus Christ perceived it. The Lord’s Prayer alsohas a missionary character, because by saying it, Christians can invite other people to come near to Jesus.
The Our Father is a prayer of hope and yet is it also an exigent prayer – a prayer that asks much of us. In the Our Father, we have the great hope that the Lord will forgive us our sins – but that also we need to forgive those who have sinned against us. The Our Father builds communion; its words give power and grace.
Finally, I close today with the words of St. John Paul II, from his encyclical Ut Unum Sint.The pope wrote, “I am reminded of the words of Saint Cyprian's commentary on the Lord's Prayer, the prayer of every Christian: "God does not accept the sacrifice of a sower of disunion, but commands that he depart from the altar so that he may first be reconciled with his brother…To God, the better offering is peace, brotherly concord and a people made one in the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (Ut Unum Sint, Pope John Paul II, 102).
Let us pray earnestly, authentically and faithfully all prayer, but especially the Our Father. In this prayer, we enter into the mind of Christ, and receive great benefits of his grace.
(Fr. Pawel Ratajczak, OMI, July 28, 2019)