Tag Archives: Divine Providence

Ask…Seek…Knock

08 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by in Prayer, Sermons

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October 8, 2015 – Thursday in the Eighteenth Week after Trinity

Readings: Malachi 3:13-4:2a; Luke 11:5-13

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Luke 11:9, RSV-CE

Today’s Gospel reading must be read as a whole. Otherwise, “ask, and it will be given you” would be understood incorrectly. (For instance, I have asked for a Ferrari many times, but I still don’t have one.) In addition, if we do not read the entire passage we might think that if we persistently annoy God enough with our prayers then He will give us what we want, like the importunate friend in the Gospel.

On the other hand, persistence in prayer is necessary; not because our prayer changes God’s mind, but because it changes us. As St. John Vianney said, “Prayer is union with God.” However, our persistence must take the form of always seeking that which we truly need from God, with the understanding that all we need comes to us from Him. Far too often, though, we continue to ask for a stone, instead of the bread that God desires to give us. But, the more we become transformed into the image of Christ, the more natural it will become for us to ask for what is in accord with the will of God.

At the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that God will give to us His Holy Spirit. And God gives us the Spirit because, as St. Paul tells us, “we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us” (Romans 8:26b) and “the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:27b)

So yes, ask and you will receive, but remember that you will receive based upon what you truly need, not what you think you need.

 

Prayer: Union with God

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Definitions, God's Will, Prayer

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Prayer is nothing else than union with God.

From A Catechism on Prayer, by St. John Mary Vianney

Before today, if someone had asked me “what is prayer” or “why is prayer important,” I would have had a difficult time answering the question. More than likely it would have taken a discussion of 5-10 minutes for me to explain what prayer is. And I suspect that many other people would have a difficult time explaining prayer because it is so mysterious. And yet in just a few words St. John Mary Vianney has given a perfect definition for what prayer is – union with God.

There are many different prayers the Church uses and many different types of prayer, but union with God is at the heart of them all. As an example let us consider the prayer that is most often used by people: petitionary prayer. People ask God for all sorts of things – everything from winning lottery numbers, to a favorite sports team winning the game, to curing a loved one of cancer. And then, when we don’t get what we want we so often say, “Why didn’t God give me what I asked for?!” Perhaps we do not receive what we desire because it was a foolish request, like winning the lottery. But ultimately there is a problem with petitionary prayer because people forget that God does not give us what we want; instead, He gives us what we need.

But this problem would never arise if people kept in mind that prayer is union with God. If in our prayer life we are seeking that union, then when we pray it will naturally be in tune with God’s will for us. There may still be times when we ask for something that is not beneficial for us and therefore God will not give it to us. But if we are always seeking union with God in our prayer, then we will more readily accept not receiving what we desired with the understanding that it was not what we needed. Our Lord teaches this to us with the following words:

For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

St. Matthew 7:8-11, RSV-CE

Too often, without knowing it, we ask for stones instead of bread! If only we would remember that the ultimate reason for prayer is union with God, then we would come to see that that which we receive, even if it is not what we asked for, is exactly what we needed all along.

 

Chance and Absolute Chance

19 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Definitions, Philosophy

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I have a sermon to write for Sunday, which prevented my posting yesterday and which leaves me no time to write anything original today. But in order to continue with our topic I am posting the definitions for ‘chance’ and ‘absolute chance’. I will have to leave any further explanation until after my sermon is written.

chance, n. and adj. 1. the unforeseen, the unintended. 2. the seeming absence of cause or design. 3. that which is said to happen without a deliberate purpose. 4. the accidental, the irregular, or the unusual in nature’s course. 5. that whose cause is indeterminable. Chance is not properly ascribed to the absence of efficient cause. Antonym – end, intention.

absolute chance, that which is not planned nor foreseen and permitted by any agent. Scholasticism denies this kind of chance occurence.

Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy, Bernard Wuellner, S.J.

Lewis on Chance

16 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in C.S. Lewis, Thought for the Day

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Now as to your other story, about Isaiah 66? It doesn’t really matter whether the Bible was open at that page thru’ a miracle or through some (unobserved) natural cause. We think it matters because we tend to call the second alternative ‘chance.’ But when you come to think of it, there can be no such thing as chance from God’s point of view. Since He is omniscient His acts have no consequences which He has not foreseen and taken into account and intended. Suppose it was the draught from the window that blew your Bible open at Isaiah 66. Well, that current of air was linked up with the whole history of weather from the beginning of the world and you may be quite sure that the result it had for you at that moment (like all its other results) was intended and allowed for in the act of creation. ‘Not one sparrow,’ you know the rest [Matthew 10:29]. So of course the message was addressed to you. To suggest that your eye fell on it without this intention, is to suggest that you could take Him by surprise. Fiddle-de-dee! This is not Predestination: your will is perfectly free: but all physical events are adapted to fit in as God sees best with the free actions He knows we are going to do. There’s something about this in Screwtape.

The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III

(An alternate opinion on ‘chance’ from a Catholic philosopher will be offered later.)