The 11th chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel is like a treasure chest of wisdom about prayer. Jesus uses several key moments in His public ministry to teach the disciples about the importance of persevering in prayer and the importance of how we approach prayer in the first place.
A frequently-raised question today about prayer is: if God is so loving and caring and will only give “good” things to us, why do we have to persist in asking? Why do we have to ask at all? The reason is not because God needs persuading (like the neighbor in Luke 11, 5-13). Persistence in prayer is for our benefit.
But how do we pray persistently? One way is to keep begging God to give us something we want or we think we need. Another is to think that somehow we can manipulate God or put Him under some kind of obligation by asking Him repeatedly. The latter of these borders on heresy! The kind of prayer that Jesus is talking about is really something quite different. He seems to presume that what we are asking for is the gift of God’s Spirit – “how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” Is that what we normally ask for? To ask for the Spirit is to ask to have the same Spirit that inspired Jesus in His life and work. It is a Spirit which is totally at one with the will of the Father.
Whatever form our prayer takes, ultimately it must be rooted in this: our desire to be like Jesus so that we may grow in the likeness of the Father. Is our aim “to know Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, and follow Him more nearly?”
Bonus: Today’s liturgical Feast is that of Our Lady of the Rosary. The title itself has been attributed to St. Dominic in 1208. Pope Pius V instituted the feast of “Our Lady of Victory” to commemorate the naval victory at Lepanto in 1571. The victory was attributed to the help of the Mother of God, because a Rosary procession had been offered on that day in St. Peter’s Square in Rome for success in the effort. In 1969, Pope Paul VI changed the name of the Feast to “Our Lady of the Rosary.” Obviously, today’s celebration invites all of us to meditate often on the mysteries of Jesus’ life, so as to follow Him more closely and draw nearer to our loving Father. May Our Lady of the Rosary be our help. “Hail Mary, full of grace …”
