A reflection on the daily readings, for Thursday of the First Week of Lent, by Father Perry.
+ According to the Introduction to the Book of Esther, this is a fictional story with two star characters, namely, Esther and Mordecai.
And although there is no direct connection with the Gospel, the story plays out as a very good example of what Jesus is speaking about in today’s Gospel, as well as the same theme being sung about in Psalm 138.
Esther cried out to God for help, with the total faith and conviction that her God would indeed help her — save her. rescue her, protect her.
She put all of her trust in her God.
+ Jesus states the same and then gives a logical and very lucid set of examples comparing God our Father, with the father or mother of a child giving good things to their children.
Jesus first states then repeats the same: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
So after Jesus repeats that in almost identical words (it certainly states the same with more emphasis), he then compares in a very logical and almost in your face set of examples — “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread?”
Or give your son “a snake when he asked for a fish”?
Then in typical teaching fashion, Jesus pulls out the lesson and makes the striking, very striking, point — “If you, who are wicked, give good things to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”
+ When it comes to faith and trust and seeking and longing, and hoping and depending upon God, Jesus always urges us to open up with all of our hearts and to ask, ask, ask.
It is the conviction of many that it is precisely in the asking that our ask often changes, matures, or ripens.
Prayer is truly a dialogue. We speak to God. We listen.
And very often, what we first asked for ripens into a better ask.
We want this job and cry out to God, and we don’t get it.
Notice no one says God didn’t give it to us; we just don’t get it.
So we keep asking and pursuing, and this happens and that changes and more reveals.
We ask and ask and ask, and we begin to see differently, and we desire more acutely and discover other possibilities.
Often, we walk in new ways and uncover the more and even the better.
+ If we had not asked, perhaps we would never have sought with perception and an open mind and spirit.
God is in all things. Our asking actually changes us just as Psalm 138 states: “When I called [to you the Lord], you answered me; you built up strength within me.”
+ Could that not be exactly what prayer does to you and me? It builds up strength. It causes us to continue to seek and to find.
It causes you and me not only to find more things out there, but also in here — within ourselves.
Prayer, as Wisdom would tell us, opens the spirit and brings life.
And God is clearly at the very center of that life!
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
