Homily For Wednesday Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time Year A, 11th October, 2023.

Readings: Jonah 4:1-11, Ps. 86, Luke 11:1-4

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

 

LEARN HOW TO PRAY PROPERLY FROM OUR LORD'S PRAYER

 

Prayer 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. Hence, if we have not been able to discern the will of God for our lives or have not had any personal relationship with God in prayers, then perhaps we should consider examining our prayer life to know if we have been praying the right way. Thus we can learn the proper way to pray from the prayer Jesus taught his disciples as the pattern of all prayers as we have it in our Gospel passage today.

 

In this prayer, we have four traditional dimensions of prayer which include: 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 forgive 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 is important because it is the means by which we communicate with our God. But often time we treat prayer wrongly when we consider prayer as a means to only achieve what we desire without considering what God desires for us. This is obvious in our first reading today in the prayer of Jonah who wished that God should condemn the people of Nineveh after his preacher. But God out of compassion forgave them and so Jonah was angry and prayed saying: Ah, Lord, is not this just as I said would happen when I was still at home? That was why I went and fled to Tarshish: I knew that you were a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, relenting from evil. So now, Lord, please take away my life. The Lord replied, ‘Are you right to be angry?’ ‘You are only upset about a castor-oil plant which cost you no labour, which you did not make grow, which sprouted in a night and has perished in a night. And am I not to feel sorry for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people?

 

Dear friends, it is time for us to change our perspective and wrong disposition towards prayers. It is time for us to spend more quality moments in prayer and be connected with God. We must let our prayers also be meaningful and 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 opportunity. But some of us end up spending lots of time reciting the prayers and yet we do not mean what we say, because we have a wrong disposition born from unforgiving hearts which must be redirected before we can get a positive response from God.

 

LET US PRAY; Lord God, we do not know how to pray properly, as we carry out our daily devotion, teach us once again how to pray properly, we ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do have a fruitful day.