PLEASE NOTE: To accompany the link to the Mass video, Father Ron is including the text to the Homily, immediately below. The link to the Mass video follows after the text of the homily.
Hello friends,
Part of the Homily was left off accidently – here is the text in full.
The first reading seems a bit odd.
Because – it appears the lesson is that God seems to encourage bargaining.
In the Gospel – Jesus not only allows us to bargain with God, He actively encourages us to do so.
After teaching His apostles how to pray, He urges His them not to give up if at first the Father doesn’t seem to be listening.
To paraphrase, He says, “Don’t give up, keep knocking!
Translation: KEEP PRAYING Ask…Seek…Knock…as we sang last week.
Today we learn a little more about prayer and about our need to insist on asking God about what we think is right.
The first reading, from the Book of Genesis, is one of those inverted kinds of stories. In this one Abraham seems to be more righteous and loving than God.
Of course, this is just to teach a lesson as we will see.
Always these kinds of stories should draw our attention because they are speaking to something very deep in all of us.
And today it is this…
At times God seems so far away or so out of touch.
Even the way some refer to him – “The man upstairs’, or ‘The big guy’ – or as in the old Bette Midler Song; watching us – ‘From a Distance’
NEWSFLASH: God is neither a guy… nor upstairs nor at ANY distance…
God is right here in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
When we distance ourselves through gender specific words and other types of limiting imagery …our relationship with the True God becomes tainted, as do our prayers.
Case in point – hearing these:
Oh God – if you are listening ..,
Oh God – I know you have more important things to do than ….
Oh God – I know you sent me this suffering…
Or the worse I’ve ever heard – said by a minister in a vain attempt to comfort the parents of a child killed by a drunk driver — –God needed another angel…
If we limit what/who God is as we just said – we can easily discount Divine actions or even worse, expect only human solutions from God.
-God doesn’t need ANYTHING and God doesn’t kill children!!!
If that WERE the case then we might very well feel that we ourselves might handle some situations better than God.
Part of this disconnect is the difficulty that we have in accepting the suffering of innocents.
When a baby dies after a drive-by shooting, or, as I said, a small child is killed by a drunk-driver we are horrified.
How could a loving God allow that?
When children are abused in any way, shape of form, by ANYONE – it is a heart wrenching testament to this…and one we dare not forget.
How can someone who ‘ Is Supposed to love’’ do such things?
How indeed…? That cannot be part of God’s Will…
When someone tries to do something really good for a child and it turns into something bad, we can become enraged.
We see this so often in divorce cases.
Or with couples seeking adoptions that are denied for archaic or idiotic reasons.
And so, we rightfully ask – Why would God allow that?
……There seems to be in most humans a deep understanding that children should not be made to suffer.
Nor should the elderly…or the frail and feeble.
There seems also an understanding that when we try to do good, it should turn out good.
If not, why didn’t God ‘make it so’?
This can quickly turn into a ‘God just doesn’t care about me or hear MY prayers’ attitude.
Even though almost all human suffering is actually caused by the bad free will choices of other humans… still….
… with all the human suffering in the world, if we think God either caused it or just allows it indifferently – I can see why some say-
I can’t even believe there IS a God.
But …real life is not that way… and we have to try to understand a God who allows the suffering of the innocent and who allows good intentions to be frustrated …and even to turn out very badly.
Abraham is quite comfortable telling God that He must not punish the innocent along with those who have done wrong or bad things.
We need that same kind of confidence in our daily prayer.
For many of us, it is a continual struggle to keep praying for what seems to be losing situations.
What effect does our prayer have?
It seems like nothing so much of the time. Or does it?
When I grew up in the 50’s and the 60’s we prayed every day for an end to the Soviet Union.
Well – where is it today?
Gone – did the 200 gazillion rosaries prayed for its demise dissolve it?
Maybe.
Or…was that the catalyst of something else, something greater..
Did the mindset …of all who faithfully prayed… cause a cumulative change in our behavior so that every little positive word we said…
… or positive action we did… towards the GOOD of humanity – then had a ripple effect, especially as we grew into adults – towards the Soviet Unions downfall?
Most likely both. Cause and effect?
-Does praying for peace every day make you a more peaceful person?
It should.
-Does praying for justice every day make you more aware of the injustices to most of the world’s population? I think it does.
-Does praying for the good of a person or a group of people you don’t understand or like make you more tolerable of them? It definitely does.
All of us should be praying every day for peace and justice for all.
All of us should be praying every day for an end to racism and genocide.
All of us should be praying for an end to all wars – especially our own.
We must continue to storm the heavens so that all of these situations can be healed and made whole – NOT by changing God’s mind, but by changing HUMAN hearts.
We need to be part of the answer to our prayers,,
God’s mind doesn’t change. Human behavior does
God allows these things as we humans learn to share in the Divine.
And the growth pains are tremendous…
And just as we weep over some of our children’s choices.
So God does ours….because …
God didn’t cause to happen any of those things I mentioned.
We – the people did – and only WE – the people can change them – if our hearts are turned to good….and that God can do and does…in answer to our fervent and persistent prayers…
And it starts – with you…….
..The Gospel of Saint Luke in today’s passage is encouraging us to persevere in our praying for such situations and never to give up hope.
It is almost as if we cannot be told enough how much God loves us,
that God will not deceive us, or hurt us in any way…
and that God wants us to keep asking for what we think we need.
–So, today as we celebrate this Holy Eucharist, let us ask for all that we need with confidence.
But let us keep on asking until we get it.
So often we give up ……and we need to keep on asking if we really need something.
The answer so often lies in the very quest.
May the Holy Spirit – present RIGHT HERE – give us this faith and perseverance!
Father Ron
From Holy Spirit Facebook post 7/23/2022:
Here is a link to our recorded Mass for this Sunday – https://youtu.be/EwQW7N7Z37w
You may also view the Mass video here: