Click here for today’s Scripture readings.
1 Kgs 21:17-29
Mt 5:43-48
Ask for anything in the name of Jesus and you will receive it along with complete joy! How much better than that could it be? “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”
Yet all of us have prayed for something or other and our prayers seemed to go unanswered. What went wrong? Perhaps we prayed in our own name asking God for what we thought would be best for us.
Praying correctly in the name of Jesus means acknowledging that God knows best and praying that his will be done. We do not pray that Jesus sees things our way but that we see things God’s way. This is the way Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.”
John, in his First Letter writes, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” In the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, Jesus instructs us to pray that God’s will be done, not ours.
To enjoy the fullness of joy promised by Jesus, we must not pray for things contrary to the will of God. After all, the joy promised by Jesus is not to be found in the self-pleasing and unsatisfactory passing pleasures of this world. God given joy is deep, real and lasting and when all is said and done, nothing can compare with God-given joy. For this we pray.
- Fr. Stephen Haslach, C.P.
