The Bible is a collection of sacred books, 73 to be exact, 46 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament.
A section of these are called the “Prophetic Books” and they bear the names of the prophets of the Old Testament, like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
But some of those names of the prophets are so unique (or odd) that we won’t find them anywhere else except in the Bible.
For example, there is Obadiah, Nahum, Zephaniah, names that sound like characters from the Star Wars movie.
Today’s 1st reading is taken from a prophet that also has an exotic sounding name, and that is Habakkuk.
That is certainly not a common or a popular name to begin with. A check on the meaning and etymology of that name does not reveal much, other than it probably means “embrace”.
But that 1st reading from the prophet Habakkuk certainly resonates with us in our experiences of life and how we feel about prayer, especially when it comes to how we feel about God answering our prayer.
Habakkuk said this: How long, Lord, am I to cry for help while you will not listen; to cry “Oppression” in your ear and you will not save?
He goes on with his lamentation about injustice and tyranny, outrage and violence, contention and discord.
We can feel that Habakkuk is complaining and lamenting, and that he is angry with God for not answering his prayer and doing nothing about the evil that was happening.
And then the Lord answered with this: Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets to be easily read; eager for its own fulfillment, it does not deceive; if it comes slowly, wait, for come it will, without fail. See how he flags, he whose soul is not at rights, but the upright man will live by his faithfulness.
God is saying that He will answer prayers, especially the cries of distress, and that He is faithful to His promises.
But on our part, we must believe that God listens to our prayers and trust that He will answer our prayers. And we also must keep our faith in Him.
In the gospel, the apostles said to Jesus: Increase our faith. Jesus replied: Were your faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea” and it would obey you.
Yes, if only our faith were the size of a mustard seed, which is among the smallest of seeds. We don’t need to see trees being uprooted and planted in the sea.
We just need to know that God listens to our prayers and that He will send help from on high. We just need to keep faith and wait for the Lord.
But actually we need to wait no longer because God has already sent help from on high!
Today, the 2nd of October, if it is not a Sunday, the Church would celebrate the feast of the Guardian Angels.
We should know that simple nursery rhyme prayer to our guardian angel – Angel of God my guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.
It is a simple and yet powerful prayer to our guardian angel because the Church teaches us that from the moment of our existence in our mothers’ womb, God has already sent each of us an angel to guard us and guide us.
We only need to call upon our guardian angels because they are the help that God is sending from on high. The following story will show us this reality.
The famous Wailing Wall or Western Wall is a great architectural monument and one of the holiest sites of Judaism and Jerusalem.
Every day, the Wailing Wall is visited by thousands of tourists and pilgrims from all over the world, and they will compose a prayer and leave a note with their wishes inside the Wall’s cracks. For nearly 2000 years the Wailing Wall by the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been a great mystery.
The Western Wall is the surviving part of the Second Temple, which was destroyed by Romans in 70 AD. There are several legends about the Wall’s origin.
The Temple was built to be the most beautiful and sturdiest building in the world. On the night before the construction began, an angel came to Solomon, instructing him to entrust the Temple’s construction to the people instead of hired workers. That way, the rich, the poor, the old and the young – everyone can make their contribution according to their ability.
King Solomon divided the Temple’s construction into four equal parts, to symbolize the four sides of the world. And he entrusted the construction of each side to a different social class: the Eastern side to the wealthy, the Northern side to the statesmen, the Southern side to clergymen, and the Western side to poor people.
The upper classes began working with great enthusiasm, hiring the best workers, while the poor did the difficult construction work with their own hands, together with their wives and children. The wealthy class finished their part of the Temple first, followed by the ministers and clergymen, and the poor were the last to finish building the Western Wall.
But a miracle happened when the construction was completed: the Spirit of God descended on the Temple and blessed the work of the poor: “The labour of the poor is dear to Me, and it shall have My blessing.”
Many years went by. The Temple was destroyed by enemies and only the Western Wall survived. Legend has it than an angel came down to it, wrapped his wings around it to protect it from destruction, and said, “The Western Wall was built by the poor, and destruction will not touch it…”.
Hundreds of years have passed, but the Western Wall is still indestructible. The poor were faithful to their duty, the Lord God blessed the work of their hands, and the Western Wall stands today as a witness of God’s protection.
Yes, God will protect the humble and lowly and He will answer their prayers when they cry out to Him.
When we use a humble and simple prayer like the Guardian Angel prayer, we are actually calling upon power from on high, and that power will come.
So let us have faith in the humble and simple prayer to our Guardian Angels. And let us also teach that prayer to our children.
It is our duty to do so.
And just as the angel wrapped his wings around the Western Wall to protect it from destruction, our guardian angel will wrap his wings around us to protect us and embrace us with God’s love.