May 9

by David Lins  |  05/09/2020  |  (Being) Catholic Matters

Today’s Readings: ACTS 13:44-52 PS 98:1-4 JN 14:7-14

“Whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

Powerful words come at the conclusion of today’s Gospel.

If I’m honest, words like these made me angry, bitter, and resentful at a certain point in my life. I prayed until I practically sweat blood. I recruited the holiest people I knew to join their prayers to mine. I recruited people who hadn’t prayed in years to join their prayers to mine. Converts. Convents. You name it. I was shameless in my rallying of prayer.

And in the end? It didn’t happen. My good and holy and just request seemed to fall on deaf (if Divine) ears. So, what did happen?

When we take the entirety of the chapter in context, we find God is so much more than a cosmic vending machine. He has given all of humanity something called “free will.” That free will doesn’t just apply to us. It applies to all God’s children. We live in a world suffering through disaster and illness thanks to original sin – the free will given to and misused by Adam and Eve. We live in a world where God will not force his desires on any of us and wrong decisions are made every second.

All of this pains God more than it pains us. This morning, my little girl got a little too excited, tripped over the edge of a carpet and took a header onto the floor. It hurt her. As her father, it hurt me even more.

The challenge, then, is to move our prayer from “God? Give me X” to something more akin to “God? Please, give me X, but if you cannot (due to free will), or will not, I trust you. Always.”

David is the Director of Faith Formation at Our Lady of Joy. If you have comments or questions, send your emails to dlins@oloj.org.

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