Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Chúa Nhật thứ 17 Thường Niên Năm C.

 Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Chúa Nhật thứ 17 Thường Niên Năm C.

Có lẽ trong cuộc sống hằng ngày, chúng ta có thể nghĩ rằng những lời cầu nguyện và cuộc sống công chính của chúng ta đếm được trên đầu ngón tay trong một thế giới tiêu cực tuyệt vời, với những bạo lực và bất công. Trên lãng vực bề ngoài thì quả thật là chính xác, nhưng trong lãnh vực tâm linh, chúng ta có thễ có công rất nhiều. Ông Abraham đã mặc cả, trả giá với Thiên Chúa để cứu thành phố Sodom khỏi sự hủy diệt, ông đã bắt đầu xin vì 50 người công chính trong thành mà Chúa sẽ không hủy diệt thành Sô-đôm, ông trả giá với Chúa và giảm số người công chính xuống chỉ còn 10 người, thế nhưng Chúa vẫn nhận lời ông.

Chúng ta không bao giờ nên đánh giá thấp sức mạnh mà Chúa đã ban cho chúng ta, khi chúng ta theo Chúa như là môn đệ của Chúa Giêsu. Trong những lúc khó khăn và đầy biến động của chúng ta, đó là lúc rất quan trọng cho chúng ta những người có lòng tin, biết dâng những sự suy nghĩ và trái tim của chúng ta trong lời cầu nguyện với nhau, và sẵn sàng dâng cuộc sống của chúng ta để làm chứng nhân cho đường lối của Thiên Chúa.

Các môn đệ đã muốn Chúa Giêsu dạy cho những lời cầu nguyện đặc biệt như những môn đồ của Gioan Tẩy Giả. Ngài đã ban cho họ kinh Lạy Cha, một lời cầu nguyện với sự tin tưởng có nguồn gốc, sự trông mong một hy vọng, sự tha thứ, và sự khao khát cho cho Nước Thiên Chúa sẽ đến.

Nhưng còn nhiều hơn nữa: trong những bài dụ ngôn hài hước, Chúa Giêsu nhấn mạnh cho chúng ta thấy tầm quan trọng của sự kiên trì trong việc cầu nguyện như thế nào. Như tháo Phaolô cho biết là phải cầu nguyện không ngừng. Chúng tai không bao giờ thay đổi được ý định của Thiên Chúa hay có thể thao túng Thiên Chúa bằng lời cầu nguyện của chúng ta. Năng lượng tinh thần của chúng ta làm cho sự kết nối với Thiên Chúa và tạo ra một cơ hội mà nhờ đó Thiên Chúa có thể thực hiện và làm việc trong chúng ta. Cầu nguyện liên tục là việc làm có nhiều hiệu quả nhất mà chúng ta có thể làm được trong tất cả mọi tình huống. Lạy Chúa, Xin dạy chúng con biết cầu nguyện.

Reflection SG

We might think that our prayers and our righteous lives count for little in a world of great negativity, violence, and injustice. On a superficial level, that is correct, but on a spiritual level, we count for a lot. Abraham ‘bargained’ with God to save the city of Sodom from destruction. Starting at 50 righteous people, for whose sake God would not destroy Sodom, he managed to reduce the number to a mere 10.

We should never underestimate the power we have as followers of Jesus. In our difficult and turbulent times, it is very important for people of like minds and hearts to pray together, and to offer their own lives as witness to the ways of God. The disciples wanted Jesus to give them special prayers like the followers of John the Baptist. He gave them the Our Father, a prayer of radical trust, hopeful expectation, forgiveness, and longing for the coming of God's kingdom. But there was more: in a couple of humorous parables, he underlined how important persistence in prayer is — as Paul said elsewhere, pray without ceasing.

We do not change God’s mind or manipulate God by our prayers. Our spiritual energy makes a connection with God and opens a channel through which God can work. Persistent prayer is the most effective thing we can do for almost any situation. Lord, teach me to pray.

Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Opening Prayer: My dear Father in Heaven, you are truly holy. Lord, open my heart to your Spirit and guide me in this prayer time. Thank you for loving me as I am, and forgive me for my many failings.

Encountering Christ:

1. Lord, Teach Me to Pray: Imagine the disciples watching Jesus as his prayer unfolded. How many times had they seen him steeped in prayer? What about this moment made them curious? What was Jesus’ posture? How did his intensity reveal itself? Watching Jesus talk to his Father must have deeply inspired the disciples because they asked to be taught how to pray. We all want an intimacy in our prayer that draws us close to the Father, don’t we? May the Lord teach us to pray.

2. A Friend at Midnight?: Our Lord was eager to teach his disciples how to pray. In the parable he shared, Jesus urged them (and us) to be persistent in prayer. Persistence in prayer can be difficult while we wait for an answer. Discouragement can sap our hope. But persistence can become much easier if we remember whom we are talking to. We know that Our Lord is pure love. Therefore we can trust him with our deepest longings, knowing that he works everything out for the best (Romans 8:28). “For ‘we have not been commanded to work, to keep watch and to fast constantly, but it has been laid down that we are to pray without ceasing.’ This tireless fervor can come only from love. Against our dullness and laziness, the battle of prayer is that of humble, trusting, and persevering love” (CCC 2743).

3. Snakes and Scorpions: This may sound strange, but aren’t there times we think we’re getting snakes in answer to our prayers? How often do we look at prayers, perhaps for a dying friend, and wonder if they are being heard? We can be tempted to pull away from God, to cross our arms like stubborn toddlers. If we’re wise, however, we’ll follow St. Paul’s recommendation and praise God! “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (Thessalonians 5:16-18). As hard as it can be, we praise God for our suffering and the good we find in the midst of our deep sorrow. When we praise God, we greatly bless him, and our praise draws an abundance of grace upon us and those we love.

Conversation with Christ: Lord, your relationship with the Father, is intriguing and captivating. There is an intimacy that I see and that I want. Lord, help me, in my prayer, to form that intimacy that only comes with a relationship. Help me, through Your Holy Spirit, to grow closer to you. Help me to grow in trust as your plan for me unfolds.

Resolution: Lord, today, by your grace, I will seek out a special time of personal prayer, perhaps to visit Christ in the Tabernacle or a Eucharistic Holy Hour, where I will praise you.

Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Luke 11: 1 – 13

This Gospel gives us three lessons on prayer; How to pray, be persistent in prayer, and God’s reception of our prayers. The Apostles had observed Jesus praying and asked him to teach them to pray. This is a beautiful request, it shows that as they spent time with Jesus they desired to be more like him. Jesus gave them the words to pray that we know as the Lord’s Prayer. It is a prayer that is simple, to the point, and quite different than the way we might formulate a prayer. Often we begin our prayer with a specific need for praying and move to expressing how it is God can help us. It is common to begin a prayer with a statements like one of these; “God, I have a problem, help,” “Lord, heal me,” “Father, where are you? I need you.” “I” and “me” tend to be the beginning of our prayers. With the Lord’s Prayer we begin by acknowledging God and our hope of sharing in the kingdom, then we move into our needs. This prayer of Jesus provides us not only with the words to pray, but a model of how to formulate our own prayers’ begin with God and then progress to our needs.

Jesus teaches us to begin prayer by acknowledging and honoring God, and His sovereignty over Heaven and Earth. We recognize God for who he is, Almighty Father. Then we acknowledge all that God has done for us in the past, like Mary did in her Magnificat, and then entrust our current situation to Him. We express our faith that he will continue to provide us our “daily bread.” What is the “daily bread” that I seek in this prayer? Whether it be help in a small or large problem, health for someone or some gift to better live our Christian lives, we place it before the Father. With this request is our acknowledging the need for mercy, and our desire to be merciful. The prayer ends with a request for deliverance to help us in times of temptation and our personal spiritual battles. This formula Jesus gives us might be different than our natural inclination to begin by asking what I want, but Jesus teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer that true prayer is God-centered and not self-centered.

The next lesson is that of persistence and patience in prayer. We need to avoid the temptation of expecting God to answer every prayer the way I want it answered. Prayer involves putting our timeline aside and trusting in God’s time. God knows us intimately, and as Psalm 139 reminds us, it was God who knew us from the moment of conception. God knows what is best for us, and when it is needed. This challenges us not to give up when a prayer doesn’t seem to be answered. If we become so set on how we want God to answer our prayer we can miss his answer to our prayer in ways we are not expecting.

The final lesson follows from the last one, don’t try to dictate to God how to answer our prayer. The particular request might be like asking God for a knife or a serpent. We might think that a particular answer to our prayer will help us, when it could do more harm than good. God’s response is to give us what we really need, what will ultimately lead us closer to him. This takes trust and openness on our part, and this can be unsettling or even scary in not knowing how things will turn out. Saint Paul assures us that for those who trust God everything will work out for the good. Pray