“Does God really love us? Does God really care?” Yes, God does care. God loves us, and cares more than we can ever imagine. We see more of that love and concern of God for us again today when Jesus tells us God will respond to our prayer: I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
God is very willing to listen. We just have to come before God as a beggar. God is not distant; it is we who distance ourselves from God sometimes. God is ever near us if we but reach out and pray to God. In Jesus’ parable today about a friend, going to another friend, during the night for food, and eventually receiving his request because of his persistence, Jesus is teaching us to do the same: to go to God at any time when we are in need and present our case before him. Jesus explains what that parable means in practice: I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
But suppose we are in a mess? How can we come before God with our lives in mayhem? Just go before God in whatever disarray you may be in. Go before God just as you are; you do not have to be perfect to go before God. God loves you not because you might happen to be good; God loves you because God is love. Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict), put it so well, when wrote about how we can pray in whatever misery we are in: “Look at me, God, I am nothing, but You are everything; I am full of misery, but You are rich enough to heal all the misery in the world; I am sinful and wicked, but You are full of extravagant love. You do not love as men do, who love only those who are sympathetic to them; You also love the beggar in rags, the prodigal son. You do not love because we are good but, rather, because You are good.” (Dogma and Preaching 108)
So, go before God as you are; God is always waiting for you. “Does God really love us? Does God really care?” Yes, God does care. God loves us and cares more than we can ever imagine.
When we come before God just as we are, in whatever misery we are in, rather than waiting to be better, our time in prayer helps us.
Prayer is not wasting time; on the contrary, we waste a day if we do not pray during that day. We are created by God to spend eternity with God after this life, so it is only natural to spend time with God every day now. Prayer is not wasting time; on the contrary, we waste a day, if we do not pray during that day.
If enough people pray, prayer can change the course of history. Our Lady appeared in Fatima near the end of the first world war, and said if people did not pray enough, there would be another worse war which of course happened—the second world war.
Abraham interceded before God for Sodom in our first reading today, and if God found enough righteous people the city could be saved. At first God would spare the city for fifty good people. But five more times Abraham interceded before God when he could not find enough righteous people in the city, and on five occasions the number needed was reduced from fifty to eventually only ten. We see that just a small number of good people can change the course of history; never underestimate the power of prayer.
This is why I am asking that when you do your Holy Hour, to offer your Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy for the passing of Value Them Both Amendment, you can help save the lives of thousands of unborn children. By your prayer, you can inspire people to vote Yes.
A small number of people can save a city or a country. There was a pastor about a woman, unable to have children, and after she got her house blessed by him, she was able to have children. In the same place, there was another woman unable to have children, and after she was prayed over, she was able to have children. So, when you pray, you never know what good effects prayer can produce; never underestimate the power of prayer. This is what we see in the Genesis reading today and in Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel: I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
“Does God really love us? Does God really care?” Yes, God does care. God loves us and cares more than we can ever imagine. And then we come to that difficult question: “Why is prayer not answered sometimes, especially when we think we are praying for something good?”
One way I look at that is that while we pray and continue to wait for the answer we would like, we are gradually growing to accept that the answer might not be what we would wish. In other words, our prayer is also working on our own souls, making us a little more ready to continue to carry our cross.
Pilgrimages to Lourdes are common in Europe, especially for those who are ill. Lourdes is a city in France, where the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette and in that location, there is a miraculous spring of water. There have been thousands of people who have claimed to receive physical healing. I know of one man from Great Bend, who told me he was physically healed there and when he told me about it, he wept like a child.
However, frequently we hear the sick, on their return from Lourdes say things like, “Even though I didn’t come back physically healed, I got a grace in Lourdes.” This happened to Fr. Stu. What the movie about Fr. Stu didn’t tell you, was that before he was ordained a priest, he went to Lourdes to be healed.
Still feeling adamant about his call to the priesthood, Stu decided in 2007, to take a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, the site of a well-known Marian apparition and many miraculous healings throughout the centuries. “He thought he would be healed. He absolutely believed 100%, he was going to receive a physical healing,” Fr. Bart recalled.
Stu went to Lourdes in a wheelchair. But he believed he would stand up and walk out of the shrine’s healing waters. But when he did stand up, after coming out of the waters, he nearly fell over into the water. He couldn’t walk. He wasn’t healed. Stu was devastated. He thought God had abandoned him. But a friend on the trip encouraged him. Stu went back to the Lourdes bath water a second time, a few days later, after he had gone to confession. Whatever Stu said in that confession is unknown. But “when he came out of the water, the second time, he had this sense of peace, just this real sense of peace, that wasn't there the first time,” Fr. Bart said,“And he didn't experience the physical healing, but he had peace.”
On the way back home from Lourdes, the group stopped in Paris. They visited Notre Dame Cathedral, where Stu saw a statue of St. Joan of Arc. Stu experienced what Fr. Bart described as “a kind of mystical encounter with Joan of Arc. And at that point, he knew he was being asked if he would carry the disease for Christ.” Stu accepted the call. From that moment on, he knew the disease would claim his life, but that it would be for Christ and for the Church. When he returned from Lourdes, Fr. Bart said, there was something different about him.
Sometimes prayer is answered in a different way. Jesus asked in Gethsemane that the cup would pass him by. It didn’t pass him by, but it was answered in another way in His resurrection.
As you pray, go before God in whatever disarray you may be in. Go before God just as you are. You do not have to be perfect to go before God. God loves you not because you might happen to be good; God loves you, because God is love.
*A good portion of this homily was taken from Fr. Tommy Lane
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