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.
 
Sunday 17^th Ordinary Time Year C
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1
In today’s Gospel we are given three teachings on prayer. First, Jesus teaches His disciples what has come to be called “The Lord’s Prayer.” Second, He teaches about the importance of persistence in prayer. Third, He teaches about the fruit that comes from correct and persistent prayer.
The Church Father Tertullian said that The Lord’s Prayer “is truly the summary of the whole Gospel.” Saint Augustine said, “Run through all the words of the holy prayers [in Scripture], and I do not think that you will find anything in them that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer.” Saint Thomas Aquinas said, “The Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers…. In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired” (See the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2761–2763).
It’s amazing to consider what these great teachers of the faith have said about this short prayer. Perhaps because of our familiarity with this prayer we can easily gloss over the depth of its meaning. We can fail to use it as a foundation and model for all of our prayer. One way to correct this tendency is to use The Lord’s Prayer for an extended period of time by prayerfully pondering every word slowly and meditatively. Doing so will help open us up to these perfect “instructions” on how we should pray.
Immediately after Jesus taught this short prayer, He taught a lesson about persistence in prayer. He taught that we must not simply say a few prayers and leave it at that, giving up if they do not appear to be answered. Instead, we must continuously beg God for His grace until it is bestowed in its fullness.
What will we receive from persistent prayer? This is an important point. We ought not go to God with our own wants and desires. We ought not beg Him for things that do not fall within His perfect will. Instead, when our prayer is modeled on the Lord’s Prayer, and when it is persistent and grounded in faith, then our prayer will be for what the Father bestows upon us, that is His will alone. We must pray that His Kingdom will come. We must trust that He will provide for our needs. We must seek His forgiveness for our sins, and we must pray that He will protect us from the evil one.
Reflect, today, upon that perfect prayer, The Lord’s Prayer. Spend time studying it, thinking about each petition, the order in which Jesus laid it out, its simplicity and its clarity. Acknowledge that because we pray The Lord’s Prayer so often, we can sometimes miss its true meaning and beauty. Our Lord gave us this prayer for a reason. Make sure that you do all you can to discover its meaning and practice its teaching.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Jesus, I trust in You.
 
Sunday 17^th Ordinary Time Year C 2025:
Opening Prayer: Heavenly Father, I ask today that your name be hallowed throughout the whole world, that your reign be extended to all peoples, and that your will be accomplished here on earth. Grant me the bread of life, forgive my sins, strengthen me in time of tribulation, and deliver me from all evil.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Temptations, Testing, or Tribulations? We are familiar with the petition of the Lord’s Prayer in which we ask, “Do not lead us into temptation,” and in the translation of the Gospel of Luke, “Do not subject us to the final test.” “Temptation” and “final test” are two different ways of translating the same Greek word, “peirasmos.” When Jesus instructs his disciples how to pray, he is teaching them “to pray that they be spared future ‘testing’ or ‘trials’ in which they would have to undergo tribulation, suffering, and maybe even death” (Pitre, “The Lord’s Prayer and the New Exodus,” 91). Jesus refers specifically to the end-time tribulation that was expected to precede the coming of the Kingdom of God. “In this light, Jesus is teaching the disciples to pray to be delivered, not just from daily trials, but from the great tribulation that was to precede the coming of the messiah and the dawn of the kingdom of God” (Pitre, “The Lord’s Prayer and the New Exodus,” 91). The petition, Lead us not into temptation,” was, for first-century Christians a petition for divine mercy and strength during the 40 years that lead up to the destruction of Jerusalem.
2. Tribulation and the First Exodus: The Greek word “peirasmos” (tribulation, temptation, trial) has ties to the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. It was used three times in Deuteronomy to refer to the period of plagues and tribulation that preceded the first Exodus (Deut 4:27-34; 7:19; and 29:3). Just as plagues and trials inaugurated the first (old) Exodus, so there would be a future time of tribulation that would inaugurate the second (new) Exodus and the age of salvation. Just as the first Passover and time of trial preceded the redemption of Israel from the slavery of Egypt, so also the new Passover would precede the redemption of Israel and the Gentiles from the slavery of sin. In short, when the Old Testament background of the line “Lead us not into temptation” is adequately taken into account and is compared with Jesus’ words elsewhere, the Lord’s Prayer also shows itself to be a prayer for divine mercy, a plea for God to spare his people the sufferings of the great peirasmos that would precede the coming of the messianic kingdom and the paschal trial that would accompany the new Exodus” (Pitre, “The Lord’s Prayer and the New Exodus,” 94).
3. A Prayer during Temptation and Trial: What does the petition, “lead us not into temptation,” mean for us today? Just as it was for first-century Christians, a plea for mercy and a prayer to God the Father to see the plight of his suffering children and release them from slavery to sin and death, it is for us a prayer for divine mercy. We ask that God spare us during the time of tribulation (peirasmos) during the end times that will precede the ultimate entry of the new people of God into the glory of the kingdom (see CCC, 677). The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the meaning of the petition in the Lord’s Prayer as follows: “We ask God our Father not to leave us alone and in the power of temptation. We ask the Holy Spirit to help us know how to discern, on the one hand, between a trial that makes us grow in goodness and a temptation that leads to sin and death and, on the other hand, between being tempted and consenting to temptation. This petition unites us to Jesus who overcame temptation by his prayer. It requests the grace of vigilance and of final perseverance” (n. 596). In this petition, we recognize our weakness and pray that God the Father be merciful and not allow us to fall into temptation (see Pitre, Introduction to the Spiritual Life, 95).
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, thank you for teaching me how to pray and giving me the model of all prayer. I humbly recognize that prayer is a gift from God and that I do not know how to pray as I ought. I trust in you and your Spirit to guide me as I pray so that I may enter into deeper communion with the Father.