17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 25, 2010

Gen 18, 20-32
Col 2, 12-14
Lk 11, 1-13

Prayer. There is, of course, the asking. The “give me this, the give me that.” More often than not this is the aspect of payer I know most surely. But there is the giving, too, and the receiving, the giving thanks. Above all, and in all, the love within and in between. This I must be aware of, especially today in the face of these readings about prayer.

In the first, Abraham bargains with God. He pleads on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, asking God, if there would be fifty good people in the cities, would he destroy them with the rest of the evil men there? God says, No, not if there are fifty. Abraham is not too sure if there are indeed that many, so he goes down to forty-five, thirty, twenty, ten. And God says if there are TEN good people there he would not destroy the cities. And were there such ten? Unfortunately, no. not eight, not even five. In the end, only Lot was saved and his wife and two daughters. FOUR. And of the four, his wife turned into a pillar of salt even as the cities burned down.

The bargaining power of prayer. But this happens only because within it, there is this love between God and Abraham, the confidence Abraham has in God, the love God has for Abraham. Do I have such ease and at-home-ness with God in my prayer, in my life?

It is this relationship with God that Jesus teaches me today: to see God and regard him as Father, to trust and believe that he loves me. This is not all, however. I must be so attuned to his will that what he wants, I want. Which is not always the case. Many more times, I want what I want and complain when God does not “answer” my prayer. Today, I must learn again that prayer is not always asking. If this I do, I must do so always with trust and love. But there is also prayer that is just this loving relationship with God, when no asking is made. Nor even words are spoken.

The poet Rainier Maria Rilke so silkenly describes how prayer can sometimes be –just You, my God, coming to me, and I, dear Lord, awaiting, welcoming You:

“She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
Of her life, and weaves them gratefully
Into a single cloth –
It’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
And clears it for a different celebration
Where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it’s you she receives.”

Fr. Roderick Salazar, SVD
(USC, Cebu City)
The Word in Other Words