July 24, 2022
My dear family of God,
We celebrate the 17th Sunday in ordinary time year C, and our Gospel reading is taken from Luke 11:1-13. Over the past weeks, Luke the Evangelist has given us some lessons on discipleship. In the last two weeks, we learned that the disciple of Christ is called to be a “Good Samaritan", but discipleship cannot be simply reduced to good deeds. The disciple of Christ is also called to sit at the feet of Jesus to listen and to learn from Him, as we saw in the example of Mary in last week’s Gospel.
In today’s Gospel, Saint Luke tells us that Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples." Luke presents Jesus in his Gospel as one who prays. Jesus had an intimate relationship with His Father, and He demonstrates this in the context of prayer. In Mark 1:35, we read that very early in the morning, before dawn, Jesus would rise and go to a solitary place to pray. He had become a model of prayer for His disciples. They had seen Him pray and may have guessed that those moments Jesus spent in prayer could be linked to the power He demonstrated in His preaching and healing ministry.
When the disciples of Jesus asked Him to teach them how to pray, He taught them what has come to be known as the pattern of all prayer, “The Lord’s Prayer”. Jesus said to them “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test."
In “The Lord’s Prayer”, Jesus teaches us to call God our Father. Prayer thus becomes a filial experience with God. We approach God as a loving Father who cares for us. A God who is ready and willing to enter into an intimate relationship with us. By teaching us to call God our Father, Jesus teaches us to live as brothers and sisters. Can you imagine what our world will be if all the people of our world acknowledged God as Father and the people they encounter as sons and daughters of God?
In the parable that followed “The Lord’s Prayer”, Jesus teaches us to be persistent in our prayer, trusting that God will answer us and grant our request at His appointed time. God is a listening God who is moved by our petition, but we must always remember that a perfect prayer is that which is in alignment with the will of God. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane gives us this perfect example when He prays: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42).
Have a grace-filled week. Shalom!
Fr. James Ahenkora
