Homily for Thursday, 1st Week of Lent

Homily for Thursday
1st Week of Lent

March 13, 2025
Matt 7: 7-12
Est C: 12, 14-16, 23-25
Collect                                                           
Ps 138: 1-3, 7-8
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

Prayer (Antoni Piotrowski)

“Ask, and it will be given to you” (Matt 7: 7).

In the 1st reading, Queen Esther prayed for persuasive words, a ready reception from the king, and Israel’s deliverance from their enemy.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us how to pray, among other things.  On Tuesday he gave us the Our Father.  Today he encourages us to ask for what we need, not limited only to our daily bread or deliverance from our enemies—but for anything.

What do we most need?  The collect suggests that we need life:  our basic existence—“without you we cannot exist”; and the deeper life of our relationship with our Father—that “we be enabled to live according to your will.”  That’s a gift, not something that comes naturally to us.

That prayer echoes the Our Father:  “thy will be done.”  God’s will is our salvation:  “your right hand saves me” (Ps 138: 7).  We pray that God’s right hand—in this instance as an expression of his wisdom—always help us “ponder on what is right” and that, enlightened, we may “hasten to carry out” what we see and know.  That’s our salvation, “to live according to [God’s] will” (collect).  We certainly need his light and help to do that:  to pray well, to trust him, to be pure, to be generous, to be kind to the people in our lives, and to be patient in our afflictions.

Part of our trust is to remember and believe, with the Psalmist, that “the Lord will complete what he has done for me” (138:8).  After all, he wills our salvation.