The conditions for prayer

Homily: 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          When I was still a student studying for my engineering degree, I worked at a small manufacturing plant that makes bumpers for semi-trucks.  Whenever I needed to get some maintenance work done, I had to submit a “work order” that described what needed to be done and when it needed to be done by.  What I quickly found out, however, was that the maintenance crew was overloaded and that my work orders often sat on a pile of other work orders that weren’t getting completed and that the crew worked on whatever the shop-floor supervisor told them was most important for the day.  Frustrated by this, I would often forego the whole process completely.  If I could just do it myself, I would.  If I couldn’t then I would document it and move on to the next thing.

          I think, sometimes, we can see prayer kind of like a “maintenance work order” system.  We fill out our form and submit it to God and he is supposed to put his crew to work to take care of it for us.  When it works, we feel satisfied.  God is there for us and we can rely on him.  When it doesn’t seem to work, we feel frustrated.  God is unreliable and so if we want this to be taken care of we either need to do it ourselves or just accept that we’ve been dealt a bad hand and that there’s nothing we can do about it.  Of course there’s more to prayer than just making requests of God, but I think you’d be surprised to find out how many people turn away from God on account of feeling like God had let them down when they felt like they most needed him to respond.  In today’s readings, we are given a model of this type prayer that can help us understand it more deeply, which is good; because when we understand it more deeply, we are less likely to become frustrated by its results.

          In our Gospel reading, Jesus’ disciples observe him in prayer and, probably quite innocently, ask him, their teacher, to teach them how to pray.  As Jesus often does, however, when he’s given an inch, he takes a mile and he not only teaches them how to pray (i.e. the correct words and manner in which to pray), but he teaches them the pre-conditions for prayer as well.

          As presented to us today, prayer in which we ask something from God has three basic characteristics: 1) be humble; 2) ask for a just thing; and 3) be persistent.  First: be humble.  As Jesus taught his disciples and as Abraham shows us today, our first task is always to recognize who it is we are addressing and what our relationship to him is.  Abraham was bold, but before he pushed God on the issue he first acknowledged that God knew better than he and so would submit to his judgments.  When we pray as Jesus taught us and say “Father…” we too acknowledge our relationship to God: that is, that he has wisdom and authority that is far greater than ours and so deserves our deference to his judgments.

          Second: ask for a just thing.  Abraham was a righteous man and so he could see the inherent conflict in the notion that God—who purports to be the just judge—would destroy innocent people for the sake of punishing those who are guilty and so he pleads, in a sense, for the lives of the innocent who live there by testing the limits of God’s justice.  In the example that Jesus gives, the man, though he comes at midnight, asks for a just thing: some bread to feed his friend that had just arrived from a journey, which, on account of the customs surrounding hospitality in the ancient Jewish culture, was something that he was expected to provide and so was a just think to request.

          Third: be persistent.  Abraham rightly saw that if God would withhold his wrath for the lives of fifty innocent men that justice would demand that he do the same if the number were as low as ten; and so he asked again and again, not presuming he knew better than God, but so as to see if God’s idea of justice lined up with his.  His persistence produced a commitment from God to spare the city (of, presumably, thousands of people) if even ten innocent persons were found there.  In Jesus’ example, the man, because he asks for a just thing, and because his friend is, also (presumably) a righteous person, receives what he asks for even in spite of the inconvenience he has caused his friend.  Notice that there was no conflict with what was asked for; because what was asked for was a just thing.  Part of being humble, however, means acknowledging that what we are asking for may not necessarily be the just thing.  Therefore, we must always be open to being shown that what we’ve asked for is not what is truly needed and so be open to receiving a different response in its place.

          Be humble, ask for a just thing, and be persistent.  These are the three characteristics of prayers of petition.  What is not often acknowledged in this lesson on prayer, however, is the necessary pre-condition for making this type of prayer.  Simply stated, this type of prayer requires a pre-existing relationship.

           I have a very good friend, named Joe, who I used to work with when I worked as an engineer.  We used to car-pool to work together and through that and our work our relationship grew.  To this day I am very close with his family and am godfather to his oldest son.  Over my years in the seminary and now as a priest, I have called on him multiple times, usually when he was not expecting it, to ask for some sort of help.  I never had any fear calling on him because I knew that whatever it was that I needed from him was a good thing and that, because of our friendship, he’d be very willing to offer his help.  Even if he was resistant, at first, I knew that I could push on him for it because he could be relied upon to respond if he was able; even if it would be inconvenient for him or his family.  I could only do that, however, because I had built a relationship with him first.

          The same applies to our prayers of petition.  When we’ve spent time with God, building our relationship with him, we become much more apt to turn to him with our needs and also to trust that, even if his response seems to be long-delayed, he will respond and give us what it is that we need (even if it isn’t exactly what we asked for).
There’s a saying that states that God responds to prayers of petition in one of three ways: “Ok”, “Ok, but not now”, and “Ok, but I have a better idea”.  When we build a relationship with God through spending time with him in the sacraments, in private prayer, and in reading the Bible, we become both bold in bringing to God all of our needs and also open to hearing which of these three responses he offers to us when we turn to him.

          My brothers and sisters, our Good God wants us to turn to him with all of our needs, big and small, because he truly is our Father who loves us dearly.  Like any good father, however, he wants even more to be in a close, intimate relationship with us, so that we may learn to trust that, even if he does not appear to respond immediately or in the way we desire, he will nonetheless respond: in the way and at the time that we truly need it.  Let us, then, renew our commitment to draw close to him today and to turn to him for all of our needs; for his promise to remain near to us—the sacrifice of his Son—is already here at hand.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – July 28th, 2019

Fear of the Lord > Revenge

Homily: 7^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          Friends, in our first reading today, we’ve been given this tiny little snippet of a much greater story contained in the book of 1 Samuel.  The snippet conveys the message that the Church wants us to receive, but the it doesn’t convey the drama of the moment.  It’s a shame, because it’s a great dramatic moment and I think that we’d benefit from a more detailed telling of the story.  Without going back and reading the whole thing to you, let me try to put some “meat” on the “bones” of the story that we heard today.

          Saul was the first king of the Israelites.  The great judge and prophet, Samuel, was in his final days and his sons were men of very poor character: none of them really worthy to take up Samuel’s mantel.  So the people asked for a king, in spite of the warnings from God about the suffering a worldly king would create.  Samuel gave them their first king when he anointed Saul.  Saul was the king they expected at first: winning military victories and giving the Israelites a prominent name among the kingdoms of the Ancient Near East.  Saul disobeyed the Lord, however, by taking loot from a kingdom that he conquered and thus was doomed to suffer a slow series of defeats before being killed in battle, himself.

          It was during one of these defeats that David came into prominence.  The Philistines (the Israelites’ arch-enemy) were camped against the Israelites, prepared for battle.  They had an “ace”, however, in Goliath and so sent him out to battle the best soldier from the Israelite camp: one-on-one, winner takes all.  No Israelite soldier would step up, except David.  And we know this story: with one rock and a slingshot, David took down Goliath.  From then, David would be a head officer in Saul’s army, winning his own prominence that began to supersede Saul’s.

          Saul, became furiously jealous of David: eventually deciding that he had to kill him.  David went on the run and Saul (with his elite officers) pursued him doggedly.  David, with a small cohort of men who were loyal to him, managed to keep ahead of Saul and his army.  Enter today’s story.

          Here, David and his right-hand-man Abishai discover Saul’s camp one night.  David and Abishai sneak into the camp and somehow get all the way to Saul (the reading tells us that God was working for them, as he had put all of the army and king Saul into a “deep slumber” so that they wouldn’t wake up).  There, David has the opportunity to kill Saul outright... with Saul’s own spear, even!  Abishai, too, recognizes the import of the moment: “God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day!”, he says.  So excited is Abishai that he offers to do the deed himself.  David, however, thinks twice.

          You see, David was a man whom the Scriptures described as being “after God’s own heart”.  His first loyalty was to the Lord, the God of Israel.  David knew that Samuel, the great prophet of God, had anointed Saul king because God had chosen Saul.  Therefore, David knew that, without a clear message from God ordering him to do so, to kill king Saul would be a grave offense against God.  It’s almost as if David thought, “If God has chosen him, then God must decide his fate”.  And so, instead of taking the opportunity to kill king Saul, he simply stole Saul’s spear and water jug so as to prove that he had the opportunity to kill him and, thus, hopefully, to inspire Saul to end his pursuit of him.  We can acknowledge this as a very noble decision on David’s part, of course, but perhaps we should pause for just one moment to recognize what a truly difficult decision it was that David made.

          Imagine for a moment that you had to abandon your house and your livelihood because someone in power over you has decided that you should die.  You have a small band of friends around you, but day-in and day-out you are in hiding: constantly in fear of being discovered; and, having been discovered, of being killed.  Now imagine that, as you are running, you one day discover that you are in a position of advantage over this person who is pursuing you and you are handed a perfect opportunity to attack and completely neutralize this enemy: could you really resist attacking?  Imagine how angry you’ve been at your pursuer.  Imagine praying to God that this pursuit would end: perhaps even that he would give you a means to bring this pursuit to the end.  Now, there you are!  A perfect opportunity to end this pursuit and even exact revenge on this person who has ruined your life: with his own weapon, nonetheless!  Is it really going to be easy to do the “noble” thing and walk away with only the proof that you could have revenged that wrong?  Are you sure?

          Let me ask it this way: when you are slighted (offended) by a friend, family member, coworker, neighbor, your own spouse, even... by anyone, really... how easy is it to resist cutting that person down when you are “venting” to someone else?  Or do you not almost immediately begin to think about the opportunity you’ll have to destroy that person when talking to others later (or, worse yet, on social media)?  If you’re anything like me, it’s incredibly hard to do the noble thing and to keep my mouth shut, when all I want to do is lash out.  Often, that’s exactly what I do: I enact revenge on the one who hurt me as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

          David, as I said, was a “man after God’s own heart”.  He knew that God’s justice would serve him much better than any “vigilante justice” that he could enact.  He remembered, as our Psalm response reminds us today, that “the Lord is kind and merciful” and so he showed Saul mercy.  He also knew, as Jesus taught his disciples in today’s Gospel reading, that the “measure with which he measured would be measured out to him”; and so he showed Saul mercy, because he believed that one day he may need mercy shown to him.  (Sure enough, he would, one day, need God’s mercy and he would receive it.)

          Friends, our Scriptures are reminding us today to be cautious in our judgments... and especially cautious in our desire to revenge even the slightest wrongs that we suffer.  While we should work to build a just society wherein no one person or group of persons can act to oppress any others, we must also temper our desire for retribution: lest we ourselves one day suffer the same retribution for our sins.  If we have faith that God is the God of justice, and that no offense goes unnoticed by him, then we, too, must leave the ultimate judgement... and the ultimate punishment... up to God.

          Friends, open your bibles this week to the first book of Samuel, chapter 26, and read through this story of David and Saul once again.  Then reflect on where in your life that you could still put more trust in God’s judgment than your own.  Then pray the Lord’s prayer, especially focusing on the phrase, “forgive us today our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”.  In doing so, you will make yourself more open to living out the grace that we celebrate and receive in this Eucharist: God’s mercy given to us.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – February 24^th, 2019

Entertaining Angels

Homily: 16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          Writer, editor and social reformer Dorothy Day was born on November 8, 1897, in New York City. She was the third of five children born to her parents, Grace and John.  Her father worked as a journalist.  Because of this, the family moved to California when Dorothy was six years old.  Later, however, they would live in Chicago.

          A bright student, Day was accepted to the University of Illinois. She was enrolled there from 1914 to 1916, but she abandoned her studies to move to New York City. There, she became involved with a literary and liberal crowd in the city's Greenwich Village neighborhood. She worked as a journalist, writing for several socialist and progressive publications in the 1910s and '20s.  Socially and politically active, Day was arrested several times for her involvement in protests.  In 1917 she went on a hunger strike after being jailed for protesting in front of the White House as part of an effort to secure the right to vote for women.

          In her personal life, Day experienced turmoil. After a couple of failed relationships, one of which led to her procuring an abortion, she entered a common-law marriage with Forster Batterham, a biologist and an anarchist.  They gave birth to a daughter named Tamar Teresa, but Day’s choice to have the child baptized at a Catholic church caused her anarchist husband to leave her.  It was this decision, however, that started her on the path to her spiritual awakening; and, in late 1927, she converted to Catholicism.

          In 1932, Day met Peter Maurin, a French immigrant and former Christian Brother. The following year, they founded The Catholic Worker, a newspaper that promoted Catholic teachings and examined societal issues. The publication became very successful and spawned the Catholic Worker Movement, which followed its religious principles to tackle issues of social justice. As part of the movement’s belief in radical hospitality, Day helped establish special homes to help those in need. Peter Maurin’s influence is evident here as he often quoted Hebrews chapter thirteen, verse two, which says: “Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.”

          Day would go on to do many more things in her life, but through it all her insistence on radical conformity to the Gospel, not just in words, but in concrete action, was a constant.  Thus, her cause for canonization has been accepted by the Vatican and she has received the title “Servant of God”.

          Hospitality was an important value among the people of the Ancient Near East and in our Scripture readings today we see the truth of what the author to the Letter to the Hebrews was talking about.  In the reading from the book of Genesis it describes how the Lord appeared to Abraham as three men on a journey.  They appeared at the hot part of the day, when the day’s journey would be most difficult.  Upon seeing them, Abraham jumps to action: not just offering them some relief from the heat of the day, but rather insisting with them that they allow him to show them this act of hospitality.  He did not know them, and his first reaction wasn’t suspicion, but rather generous hospitality.  As it turns out, he was entertaining angels: true messengers of the Lord who then gave him good news; that his wife, Sarah, whom all thought was barren due to her old age, would give birth to a son within a year.

          In our Gospel reading, we read that Jesus, upon entering a village, was welcomed by Martha.  It doesn’t say that Martha was the first to offer him hospitality, but I suppose that we might assume as much since the rules of etiquette require that we accept the first offer we are given.  There, much like Abraham did for the Lord’s messengers, Martha busied herself with preparing food and refreshments for Jesus and his disciples.  Thinking it rude that her sister Mary was not as occupied with trying to serve their guests, she asks Jesus to reproach her so that she might be embarrassed and begin to help with the serving.  Jesus, however, reminds Martha that, while serving is a good thing, it is not as important as recognizing who it is that is in your midst: for when you do, you may just find that you’ve been entertaining angels (or, in this case, the Son of God) and that those angels may be ready to bring you good news.

          My brothers and sisters, as I reflect on the high-profile acts of violence that have been happening, most recently the horrific attack on innocent life that happened in Nice, France, last Thursday, I am convinced that one of the root causes of this violence is a loss of this value of hospitality.  This is because to be radically hospitable one has to acknowledge the inherent dignity and value of every person, regardless of whether or not they are known to you.  When we look at others with suspicion, instead of rushing to serve them, like Abraham and Martha did, and like Dorothy Day did, that sets us up to believe that it’s “us versus them”; and if it’s “us versus them” then their lives automatically become less valuable to us; which then makes it possible to harm them for our advantage, instead of to serve them for theirs.

          Friends, if we want to see a real change in this world, then we must start right here in our own families and in our community, changing the prevailing mentality from “us versus them” to “us for them”.  We must begin, however, where Martha’s sister Mary did—sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to him speak—because he will be our solid rock supporting us as we serve and the angel whose face we will see in the faces of those whom we serve.  Therefore, let us make it our task this week to open our hearts a little more to Jesus by giving him more time in prayer and our lives to him by practicing greater hospitality to all whom we meet.  Because in doing so, we may find that we, too, “unknowingly entertained angels”.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 17^th, 2016

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"Entertaining Angels" is a good film on the life of Dorothy Day.

See a trailer here.

Pre-existing conditions...

          Prayer can be both an exhilarating and a frustrating experience.  Exhilarating when it seems like our hearts and our minds are so completely in-tune with God’s that he seems to respond almost directly to whatever it is we ask for: whether that be for help on a test, for wisdom to handle a difficult situation at work (or, perhaps, for that difficult situation to disappear), or for the healing and recovery of a loved one from an illness or an injury.  It can be frustrating when the opposite is true.  Sometimes, no matter how long and hard we pray it seems as if we’re speaking to a brick wall because the only response that we receive is the echo of our own voice.  This can be especially so when we are lost and looking for direction in our lives or when pleading desperately for the healing of a loved one and God doesn’t seem to respond.  For many, the experience of frustration leaves a lasting wound that unfortunately causes them to give up on the effort completely.

I took up this theme for my homily this week.  Prayer is not a task, it is a relationship!

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Homily: 17^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          When I was still a student studying for my engineering degree, I worked at a small manufacturing plant that makes bumpers for semi-trucks.  Whenever I needed to get some maintenance work done I had to submit a “work order” that described what needed to be done and when it needed to be done by.  What I quickly found out, however, was that the maintenance crew was overloaded and that my work orders often sat on a pile of other work orders that weren’t getting completed and that the crew worked on whatever the shop-floor supervisor told them was most important for the day.  Frustrated by this, I would often forego the whole process completely.  If I could just do it myself, I would.  If I couldn’t then I would document it and move on to the next thing.

          I think, sometimes, we can see prayer kind of like a “maintenance work order” system.  We fill out our form and submit it to God and he is supposed to put his crew to work to take care of it for us.  When it works, we feel satisfied.  God is there for us and we can rely on him.  When it doesn’t seem to work, we feel frustrated.  God is unreliable and so if we want this to be taken care of we either need to do it ourselves or just accept that we’ve been dealt a bad hand and that there’s nothing we can do about it.  Of course there’s more to prayer than just making requests of God, but I think you’d be surprised to find out how many people turn away from God on account of feeling like God had let them down when they felt like they most needed him to respond.  In today’s readings, we are given a model of this type prayer that can help us understand it more deeply, which is good; because when we understand it more deeply, we are less likely to become frustrated by its results.

          In our Gospel reading, Jesus’ disciples observe him in prayer and, probably quite innocently, ask him, their teacher, to teach them how to pray.  As Jesus often does, however, when he’s given an inch, he takes a mile and he not only teaches them how to pray (i.e. the correct words and manner in which to pray), but he teaches them the pre-conditions for prayer as well.

          As presented to us today, prayer in which we ask something from God has three basic characteristics: 1) be humble; 2) ask for a just thing; and 3) be persistent.  First: be humble.  As Jesus taught his disciples and as Abraham shows us today, our first task is always to recognize who it is we are addressing and what our relationship to him is.  Abraham was bold, but before he pushed God on the issue he first acknowledged that God knew better than he and so would submit to his judgments.  When we pray as Jesus taught us and say “Our Father…” we too acknowledge our relationship to God: that is, that he has wisdom and authority that is far greater than ours and so deserves our deference to his judgments.

          Second: ask for a just thing.  Abraham was a righteous man and so he could see the inherent conflict in the notion that God—who purports to be the just judge—would destroy innocent people for the sake of punishing those who are guilty and so he pleads, in a sense, for the lives of the innocent who live there by testing the limits of God’s justice.  In the example that Jesus gives, the man, though he comes at midnight, asks for a just thing: some bread to feed his friend that had just arrived from a journey, which, on account of the customs surrounding hospitality in the ancient Jewish culture, was something that he was expected to provide.

          Third: be persistent.  Abraham rightly saw that if God would withhold his wrath for the lives of fifty innocent men that justice would demand that he do the same if the number were as low as ten; and so he asked again and again, not presuming he knew better than God, but so as to see if God’s idea of justice lined up with his.  His persistence produced a commitment from God to spare the city (of, presumably, thousands of people) if even ten innocent persons were found there.  In Jesus’ example, the man, because he asks for a just thing, and because his friend is, also (presumably) a righteous person, receives what he asks for even in spite of the inconvenience he has caused his friend.  Notice that there was no conflict with what was asked for; because what was asked for was a just thing.  Part of being humble, however, means acknowledging that what we are asking for may not necessarily be the just thing.  Therefore, we must always be open to being shown that what we’ve asked for is not what is truly needed and so be open to receiving a different response in its place.

          Be humble, ask for a just thing, and be persistent.  These are the three characteristics of prayers of petition.  What is not often acknowledged in this lesson on prayer, however, is the necessary pre-condition for making this type of prayer.  Simply stated, this type of prayer requires a pre-existing relationship.

          I have a very good friend, named Joe, who I used to work with when I worked as an engineer.  We used to car-pool to work together and through that and our work our relationship grew.  To this day I am very close with his family and am godfather to his oldest son.  Over my years in the seminary, I called on him multiple times, usually when he was not expecting it, to ask for some sort of help.  I never had any fear calling on him because I knew that what I was asking for was a good thing and that, because of our friendship, he’d be very willing to offer his help.  Even if he was resistant, at first, I knew that I could push on him for it because he could be relied upon to respond if he was able; even if it would be inconvenient for him or his family.  I could only do that, however, because I had built a relationship with him first.

          The same applies to our prayers of petition.  When we’ve spent time with God, building our relationship with him, we become much more apt to turn to him with our needs and also to trust that, even if his response seems to be long-delayed, that he will respond and give us what it is that we need (even if that isn’t exactly what we asked for).

          There’s a saying that states that God responds to prayers of petition in one of three ways: “Ok”, “Ok, but not now”, and “Ok, but I have a better idea”.  When we build a relationship with God through spending time with him in the sacraments, in private prayer, and in reading the Bible, we become both bold in bringing to God all of our needs and also open to hearing which of these three responses he offers us when we turn to him.

          My brothers and sisters, our Good God wants us to turn to him with all of our needs, big and small, because he truly is our Father who loves us dearly.  Like any good father, however, he wants even more to be in a close, intimate relationship with us, so that we may learn to trust that, even if he does not appear to respond immediately or in the way we desire, he will nonetheless respond: in the way and at the time that we truly need it.  Let us, then, renew our commitment to draw close to him today and to turn to him for all of our needs; for his promise to remain near to us—the sacrifice of his Son—is already here at hand.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 28^th, 2013