Genesis 18:20-32 / Colossians 2:12-24 / Luke 11:1-13
If we want to know how much parents love their children and what they will do for their children, we just have to ask those parents who are applying for their children’s admission to Primary school under Phase 2B.
For those of us who have already experienced that, we will surely empathize with these parents who are going through that process.
It is a high-anxiety, stressful and nerve-wrecking experience for these parents.
And not just for the parents. Even the priests get involved in the process.
Parents request the priests to write letters especially if it is for application to a prominent Catholic school. Parents and their children come and ask for prayers that the application will be successful.
The priests also pray that the application will be successful, otherwise the parents will say that the prayer is not powerful enough.
Of course, some applications are successful and some are not. And for those that are not successful for Phase 2B, they will have to go through the “now-or-never” Phase 2C balloting where the chances are even slimmer.
So the parents are anxious and stressed, the priests also get anxious and stressed. At stake for the parents is the admission of their children to the preferred school. At stake for the priests is the faith in the power of prayer.
For parents and for priests the critical question is: Will God hear the prayers? And will He answer the prayers?
It is not just a question for parents and priests. It is also our question. Every one of us will have the experience of a stressed-out, high-anxiety, nerve-wrecking time of our lives.
So how did it all those episodes turn out? Were our prayers answered? Did we ask for bread and got a stone? Did we ask for fish and got a snake? Did we ask for an egg and got a scorpion?
In the 1st reading, we heard of a rather amazing, and maybe amusing, story of Abraham who stood before the Lord, and he was pleading and negotiating with the Lord not to destroy the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Abraham pleaded that why should the virtuous man be destroyed with the wicked? And he went from 50, to 45, to 40, to 30, to 20 and then finally to 10.
The boldness and persistence of Abraham was really something, and it takes a lot of faith and courage to do this with the Lord.
Yet in doing this, Abraham taught us something and the Lord God also showed us something.
Abraham believed in the mercy and compassion of God, and God also showed that He relented when Abraham appealed to His mercy and compassion.
And we might even wonder: if Abraham had gone further down to 5, or even to 1, will the Lord still relent?
And Jesus also gave us a very encouraging teaching about asking, searching and knocking. He says: For the one who asks always receives, the one who searches always finds, and the one who knocks will always have the door opened to him.
Yes, it is very encouraging indeed. But if that is so, then why is it that some people say that their prayers were not answered?
And maybe we are the ones who say that God does not answer our prayers. And so our faith is shaken, we get angry with God, and we wonder if we should still continue believing in God. What is the point in believing in God when He doesn’t hear or answer our prayers?
Maybe we prayed that our child be admitted to the school of our choice, but got rejected. We get disappointed. Or maybe we prayed to get that $54 mobile phone and went to queue for it but we didn’t get it and were disappointed.
We asked, we searched, we knocked and all we got is zero. So how? So what now?
Maybe we should look at our prayer and see what it is about. Very often we state our needs first. We tell God that we want this and we want that.
But we forget to acknowledge God for who He is, that He is our Father, as in the prayer that Jesus taught us, which begins with the words “Our Father”.
And we also need to acknowledge that God our Father is merciful and compassionate. That is the “soft spot” of God, and because we appealed to His mercy and compassion, God will certainly show us how merciful and compassionate He is.
So our prayer should go like this:
O God our Father, You are merciful and compassionate. Have pity on me as I place this prayer before You.
Oh yes, God will hear and answer our humble prayer and He will even give us the Holy Spirit who will teach us how to pray.
Then we will know how to ask, how to search and how to knock.