Today's Gospel

Teach Us How to Pray

I'm Matthew Kelly, and welcome to our Gospel Reflection. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11, verses 1 through 13. Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when He ceased, one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught His disciples." And Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say, 'Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation.' And Jesus said to them, "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he will answer from within, 'Do not bother me. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.'

I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish, give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"

So remember, when we hear the gospel, we're looking for a word or a phrase or an idea that jumps out at you that the Holy Spirit uses to capture your attention or intrigue your curiosity, your imagination. There's so much in this reading, as there often is, but what is it that jumped out at you? A few things, I think, jump out at me. One is that this is the only collective request that the disciples make of Jesus in the Gospels.

They requested of Him things as individuals. They requested Him things. James and John came asking for the right hand and whatnot. But this is a collective request, and I think it remains our collective request of God. I think it remains our collective request of the church. Teach us how to pray. Teach us how to connect with God. Teach us how to have a relationship with God. Teach us how to commune with God. And so I think that is always compelling and for us to ask ourselves, okay, how is that going? Do we need to renew that request? Do we need to renew our practice of prayer or our education about prayer? The other thing that has really struck me today was the ask, seek, and knock. And very often people talk about this, and they're like, "Ask and you'll receive." But Jesus didn't say that if you seek, you will find what you thought you were looking for. He said you will find. And I think that's fascinating because I think a lot of our prayers are answered in ways that are different and sometimes radically different to how we expected them to be answered. But they weren't nonetheless answered, and they were answered with God's love, with God's providence, with God's wisdom in knowing the whole picture, which we, of course, don't know when we ask. We don't know the whole picture. We don't know the big picture. We don't know about next week or next year or 10 years from now. And so I think it's a fascinating experiment to look back on our lives and to look at the specific prayers that we have prayed, the specific things that we've asked for, that we've sought, the doors that we have knocked on, and in hindsight, to see how God answered those prayers. And in seeing how he answered our prayers, and maybe it's 10 years ago, maybe it's 20 years ago, maybe it's 30 years ago, and you see, okay, yeah, at the time, I really hated that answer to that prayer, but I see the wisdom of it today.

When we look back on our lives like this, when we see how God has worked in our lives in the past, it gives us faith and hope that he is working in our life today, and he will work in our lives in the future. And that gives us great confidence to continue to walk with Him, and to walk with Him and you, to walk with Him with more commitment and more confidence than ever before. Have a great day, and remember, be bold, be Catholic.