Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Link to Mass Readings: http://www.usccb.org/nab/072510.shtml

“The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” That is what we are taught by these readings, and it is sometimes the hardest lesson to learn. When Jesus is explaining the Our Father, he asks “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?” We interpret this as the Lord will answer our prayers, giving us what we ask for; but Jesus makes it clear that we are to pray a certain way, and for certain things.

Remember, this is the same Christ who told us to “let the dead bury the dead.” When we follow God, we are to follow him completely, turning neither to the left nor the right of the narrow way. So Jesus asks us to pray for these four things only: for God to establish his kingdom on earth, to not starve, that God forgives our sins, and not to be subjected to the final test. When we are to pray, we are to pray for holiness, in poverty.

Our model of what God wants from us is in Jesus. He stripped himself of material things to preach the gospel, because wealth does not lead to holiness. He kept friends by his side, but those who suffered and died like Lazarus he did not move to prevent their suffering though he loved them. Rather, he raised Lazarus because his illness was meant to be “for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” The Lord hears the cry of the poor, and Jesus teaches us to pray from a place of poverty. The Our Father reminds us that it is about God, and not us, and we should not have distractions from him.

Jesus does not teach us pray for the avoidance of suffering. When Abraham exclaims to God: “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to make the innocent die with the guilty, so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!” God relents. But Abraham is only able to bargain down to ten innocent people. If there are less than ten innocent people in Sodom then yes, the innocent will suffer alike with the guilty. And that is a reality we understand in the history of the world, when so many innocents suffer because of the actions of the guilty.

Christ raised us from the dead, when we were buried in our transgressions. He has given us life, a life that is in this world but not of it. Our prayers should be for the Holy Spirit, for those things that lead us to God. The hard lesson is that prayer is not for promotions, or presents, or safety, or less suffering. But the purpose is to be drawn closer to the God who Is.

I don’t know where this leaves miracles. They are unexpected manifestations of God’s power, which break the rules of the world. They are proof of God’s mercy. Jesus performed miracles because of the faith of those he saved, and if that is an indication it means that miracles favor those who cling closely to God. God hears the cry of the poor. “Lord, on the day I cried for help, you answered me.”