<\/p>\n
Did you find it strange how today’s Gospel ended- the contrast between the theme in the two readings- prayer, and the last line of the Gospel on “doing to others”?\u00a0 What’s the message there?\u00a0 Now the readings tell us that God answers our prayers.\u00a0 As an example we have Queen Esther’s story.\u00a0 Here is a faith filled Jewish lady in the Old Testament, who is faced with dire circumstances.\u00a0 She prostrates herself in prayer all day long in hopes that against all odds, God will spare her people from a terrible decree by her husband, the King.\u00a0 We did not hear all of the story today, but Queen Esther’s prayer was indeed answered,. Her people were spared, her prayer was answered.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
And then, we have the famous words of the Gospel:\u00a0 “Ask and you shall receive” with the quite vivid imagery of a father not giving his son a snake rather than a fish.\u00a0 Indeed, if God, who is all good will always answer our prayers, and never ever give us a snake rather than a fish, then why, why does it sometimes seem that our fervent prayers are not heard?\u00a0 Why does one person’s prayer seem to be answered, and yet another, equally, and maybe even more faith filled than the first, seem to get turned down- Why?\u00a0 Personally, I have seen people pray for, and make devout and sincere novenas over time, and yet, their prayers seemed to go for naught- people who prayed that God would help them out of a job loss or natural disaster of some kind; the loss of a loved one so early in life; or people who were making a difference with their dedication and ministry but who succumbed to cancer or some other horrible disease.\u00a0 And yet others seem to be miraculously healed; or wonderful things just fell into place, sparing them of the disaster.\u00a0 And so I ask- why? \u00a0Why one person and not the other.?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Well, this is one of those times where human understanding and knowledge falls short.\u00a0 Because, basically, \u00a0we don’t have all the facts and we don’t know all the consequences.\u00a0 Only God does- and it is God’s wisdom that we must learn to trust in.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Patrick.\u00a0 It occurs to me that St, Patrick is a good example.\u00a0 Here was a man who was kidnapped, enslaved, and subjected to terrible conditions for years.\u00a0 Certainly, he must have felt abandoned by his God over the years of his captivity.\u00a0 Certainly it must have seemed that his prayers were going for naught.\u00a0 Finally, he escaped, and returned to his native England.\u00a0 Now here’s the really interesting part; what did St. Patrick do?\u00a0 He returned to Ireland as a Bishop, and worked for the rest of his life to convert the very people who had subjected him.\u00a0 He dedicated his life to doing unto others as he would have them do to him.\u00a0 Because St. Patrick lived as if Christ’s love surrounded him, and no matter what seemed to be happening to him , he could depend on the goodness of God’s will for him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
And so, as difficult as it may seem to us,\u00a0 God’s will is the answer to all of our prayers.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of First Sunday of Lent (St. Patrick’s Day) Esther C: 12, 14-16, 23-25; Mt 7: 7-12 Dc. Larry Brockman Did you find it strange how today’s Gospel ended- the contrast between the theme in the two readings- prayer, and the last line of the Gospel on “doing to others”?\u00a0 What’s the message there?\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}