Luke 11, 1-13:
Sunday, 24th July 2022 (17th T O C)
The disciples of Jesus saw that he often withdrew to pray, especially when he was going to do something important (the election of the apostles, the miracles…). So one of the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. And Jesus tells them (and us) how to pray: the Our Father.
God’s presence in our lives is always for the good, but what if we don’t live it that way! Our faith is often subject to the temptation of lack of faith, unbelief, lack of trust. As soon as something does not work out as we would like or as we expected; as soon as it seems to us that God is not listening to our prayer; as soon as there are stones in our path… Doubt appears, the eternal question about his existence, about his intervention in history and in life. That is why this Sunday’s Gospel does us a lot of good by reminding us that Jesus, his Father, is always a good Father, who listens to our needs, the deep ones, the real ones, the true ones… and gives them the best of answers: his presence – his Spirit – in their midst. Because with him in their midst, with his Spirit… everything is better. Every passion and every death can become Easter. So if you are feeling failure, injustice, confusion, pain, loneliness, misunderstanding, rejection, tiredness, illness, brokenness, darkness… be grateful to the disciple who asked the Lord how to pray and the Lord answered him with the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer that invites us every day to say “Thy will be done”. It is the best thing that can happen to you.
Juan Ramón Gómez Pascual
Our Father
