Genesis 18:20-32 / Colossians 2:12-24 / Luke 11:1-13
Generally speaking, people do pray. More so for us as Catholics, we pray, whether sporadically, as in once in a while, or every day.
And when we come for Mass, we pray. So we can say that at least we pray once a week, and hopefully we pray more than that.
By and large, when we pray, we pray for our own needs and intentions. At least we begin somewhere in prayer.
How our prayer is answered that depends on God surely. But as much as prayer is a serious affair, there can be a humourous side to it.
Not to say that prayer is a joke, but jokes about prayer can at times reveal how we are praying and what we are praying for. Here are some examples.
Man - God how long is a million years to you?
God – Oh, it is just like a minute.
Man - God how much is a million dollars to you?
God – Oh, it is just like a cent to me
Man - God can I have a cent?
God – Ok, just wait a minute …
A priest preached sermons that were very long and boring. And for the final hymn, the congregation would sing “God of mercy and compassion.”
Then one Sunday the priest announced to the congregation that he will transferred to another church and that it was Jesus' wish that he leave that week.
Then for the final hymn, the congregation got up and sang loudly: "What a Friend we have in Jesus!"
Just a joke, but when we say we joking, there is an underlying truth about the reality.
What we heard in the 1st reading may seem to be like a joke.
The outcry was against the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and God was about to inflict a punishment on them for their grievous sin.
Abraham stood before the Lord and he began to plead by saying, “Are you really going to destroy the just man with the sinner?
He began by saying what if there were fifty just men in the town. And then he bargained for forty-five, and then forty, and then thirty, and then twenty, and then finally ten.
As much as the punishment was going to be serious, the bargaining that Abraham had with God does seem rather funny.
It sounds like something we like to do at the road-side stalls where there is no fixed price and it’s a matter of how much we can haggle to get the cheapest price.
But as much as it may sound rather funny, that is also the reality with God’s mercy. God’s mercy is funny in that it comes at the “cheapest price”.
Abraham stopped at ten, but would God have relented if Abraham went down to just one?
The Bible tells us that the Lord God is slow to anger but rich in compassion and mercy.
And in the gospel, Jesus tells us the key that would unlock this compassion and mercy of God. And the key is persistence.
In the parable, persistence will be enough to make the man get up and give his friend all he wants.
And that is why Jesus tells us this: Ask, and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
For the one who asks always receives; the one who searches always finds; the one who knocks will always have the door opened to him.
So Jesus tells us to ask, to search, to knock. Not just once or twice or hope that we will be lucky the third time around.
But when we ask, when we search, when we knock, the first time, and then a second time and then a third time, and then how? And then what?
Abraham went from 50, to 45, to 40, to 30, to 20 and then to 10. Would we go further than that by going all the way with 5, and then 4, and then 3, and then 2, and even to 1?
Every week, in the acrylic petition box that is next to that big statue of the Sacred Heart, there are about 250 petitions, and at times 300 or even more.
Let’s say that Jesus appeared to me and tells me that if I can find 50 virtuous and just persons in this parish to pray for these petitions, He will answer all of them. Do you think I can find 50 virtuous and just persons to pray for these petitions?
Will there be 50 virtuous and just persons in this parish community to pray for these petitions so that Jesus will answer these petitions.
Or will I have to say, how about 45, or 40, or 30, or 20, or 10, or 5, or just 1?
If it has to be just one, then will you be the one? Will you be the virtuous and just person who will offer yourself to pray for these petitions every day so that others will experience the love and compassion and mercy of Jesus?
For those who write their petitions, they have already expressed their sincerity and need. Will there be anyone who will pray for their need?
Every Friday at the evening Mass we offer those intentions to Jesus, and especially at the 1st Friday Mass when we offer up all the intentions to His Sacred Heart.
We pray that for those whose petitions are answered, they will have a deeper devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and in turn be the missionaries of His love and mercy.
We just have to pray and ask and persist in doing so.
A million graces will be poured from the Heart of Jesus. And we won’t have to wait a million years for that.
So let us be united as one in Jesus and pray for those in need, because God our Father is waiting to pour His mercy and compassion and everything that is good for those who ask, and ask, and persist in asking.