Homily For Saturday Sixth Week of Eastertide Year A, 20th May, 2023

Readings: Acts 18:23-28; Ps.47;  John 16:23-28

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyi

 

WHY CONCLUDING OUR PRAYERS WITH "THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD”

 

People often asked why most of our liturgical prayers ends with the phrase ‘through Christ our Lord'. Is this necessary since God can here us directly? Anyway, the answer to this question is found in our Gospel passage today, when Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I tell you most solemnly, anything you ask for from the Father he will grant in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and so your joy will be complete... because the Father himself loves you for loving me.’

 

Here Jesus makes a solemn promise to his disciples that whatever they ask the Father in his name will be given to them. This is because in Jesus the disciples will experience a direct contact with the Father. His name becomes the link that will usher them into the divine relationship between the Son and the Father. For it is through this relationship that the disciples will come to experience the divine privilege that will give access to their request from God.   

 

Therefore the Greek word ‘dia’ which can be translated as both ‘by’ and ‘through’ can be linked to the words of Jesus when he said in John 14:6  ‘I am the way. No one can come to the Father except “through“ me’. Thus, Jesus is the way through which we can come to God. For through Jesus, we have obtained access to the grace of being God’s children.

 

This does not mean that God is inaccessible. Rather as we know God is spirit Whose nature is beyond our apprehension and different from our nature that are material and sinful. So to make himself known to us He sent His son to take our flesh upon him and to become human like us, in order to free us from the power of sin and death, so that, we can be more closer to Him through Christ His Son.

 

Hence, asking God for something through Christ ushers us into the divine grace that gives us access to divine relationship with God the Father and this has become the normal way for the Church to pray to the Father as we do in all our liturgical prayers. This is what see playing out in our first reading today when Apollos arrived Achaia and by God’s grace, he was able in energetic way refuted the Jews in public and demonstrated from the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

 

Dear friends, God makes himself known to us through Jesus and we come to Him through Jesus. Thus, Christ Jesus has become the divine grace through which we obtain the divine access into the divine life of the Trinity. And this is the source of our joy as Christians. For this give us the divine access to include Jesus  in our daily decision making. And try to see things the way he does and when this happens we transcend ourselves into the divine relationship that will make us to be open to the will of God and so obtain from him whatever we need. This is why we conclude most of our prayer in the name of Christ Jesus.

 

LET US PRAY: Lord God, as we learn to present our needs to you through your Son Jesus, grant we pray that we may obtain through him the divine access to your will and so grant all our petitions according to your Holy will through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do have a grace-filled weekend.