Homily for Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C, 24th July, 2022. The World Day For Grandparents and the Elderly

 Reading: Gen. 18:20-32; Ps. 138; Col. 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13

Rev.  Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia

HOW TO DIALOGUE WITH GOD IN PRAYER 

As contingent being, it is common for human beings to reach out to other people when we are in need of something. And oftentimes we seek the intervention God especially in some difficult needs and situations.  No doubt that a good number of us have in one way or the other looked up to God or people for help. 

I don’t know if you have ever been truly in need of something from a friend who is capable of giving you what you needed but he is so busy to give you what you need now? Or have you been in a situation where you needed something from a friend but cannot get it because you can not reach him easily? Such a situation can make one to be under serious pressure. Then the question that comes to mind is, are we going to give up or persevere in our struggles on waiting or reaching out to him? This kind of disposition is what we experience sometimes when we pray and our requests are yet to be granted because we don’t really know how to dialogue with God in prayer.

Hence, the disciples of Jesus knowing how important prayer is, and having watched Jesus prayed, asked him to teach them how to pray as we have it in our Gospel passage today as our Lord’s Prayer. And prayer as we know is a means of communication between God and humanity. It is a close link by which we reach God who dwells in our hearts. It is through prayer we discern the will of God for us.  Thus we can learn how to dialogue with God in prayer  from this prayer Jesus taught his disciples as pattern of all prayers 

In this prayer we have four traditional dimensions of prayer which includes: glorification of God, submission, justice and protection. Jesus begins by saying: Father, hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come, thereby teaching us that we begin any of our prayers by glorifying God. Following this is our total submission to God’s providence when we say: give us each day our daily bread. Then, we acknowledge the justice and mercy of God when we say: forgive us our sins as we for give those we have sinned against us. And finally we ask for God’s guidance and protection when we say: lead us not into temptation but deliver us from all evil.

This tells us that we should approach God with confidence as a friend, persisting until we obtain what we need as Jesus illustrated with the story of  a father and his son and  a man who had a visitor and needed the help of his neighbours. With this illustration Jesus emphasized that if we, who are prune to evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more shall the heavenly Father give to those who ask him. So, we should learn how to  keep on asking, seeking, and knocking in prayer until we obtain the answer we need. Just like a boy asking his father for a fish or an egg, knowing that his father would not give him a snake or a scorpion instead of the fish or egg he had requested. 

This is what Abraham demonstrated in our first reading  when he kept asking for God’s mercy on behalf of the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But more than Abraham interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord Jesus sacrificed his life for the redemption of humanity and this is what St. Paul in our second reading today made us to know when he said: the Lord has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins. He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross. This of course, shows us how God is willing to hear us whenever we call on him in prayer.

 Dear friends, as contingent being there are times when we asked and we received, sought and found, knocked and it was opened to us. But there were also times when we asked but did not receive, seek but did not find, knocked but the door remained shut. In such moments persistency and perseverance in prayer are what we are called to embrace. For they will help us to understand how to trust God knowing  that he does not need to be informed of our needs, thereby encouraging us never to lose heart. This is certainly one of the biggest challenges of our faith today. People are not just patient with God. We want to have everything right now as it is hot. Patient, persistency and perseverance are very difficult virtue for most people today.

Therefore, it is time for us to change our perspective and wrong disposition towards prayers. It is time for us to spend more quality moment in prayer and be connected with God. We must let our prayers also be meaningful and be genuine from our hearts. It is time  for us to improve the quality of our prayer life by imitating Jesus, who always prayed to his heavenly Father at every possible opportunities. But some of us end up spending lots of time reciting the prayers and yet we did not mean what we say, because we have not learnt how to dialogue with God in prayer especially when we have wrong disposition born from unforgiving heart which must be redirected before we can get a positive response from God.

LET US PRAY: Lord God, oftentimes we are not patient with you in our prayers, because we don't know how to dialogue with you in prayers. Give us the grace to learn how to dialogue with you and to persevere and be persistent in our prayer life and in every other things we do in life, especially in our relationship with others. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Happy Sunday.