It is faith that counts (Thursday, Week 27, Year 2)

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Our relationship with God is a relationship of faith. It is a relationship that is hinged on faith because we can’t physically or literally hear or see or touch God. On the basis of this fact, prayer becomes absolutely meaningless and fruitless if faith is lacking. But to have and sustain faith is not as easy as it is being talked about. When challenges come, that is when we will know whether we have faith or not. 

In Luke 11:1-4, we have an account of Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray; how to communicate with God the Father, a Being that they can’t literally see or touch or hear. Now, to help the disciples nurture and build the faith needed for an efficient communication and interaction with God through prayer, He came up with three analogies in today’s gospel (cf. Luke 11:5-13). First, He says that asking God for something is like a friend calling a friend for some loaves of bread to serve a visitor who just arrived on a journey at midnight. No matter how unwilling the friend may be, he cannot continue to ignore such a persistent call from a friend. He must rise and do something. Again, Jesus said that asking God for a favor in prayer is like a child asking his father for a fish. No matter how wicked the father is, he can’t offer him a snake. Again, it is like a child asking his father for an egg. No matter how horrible he is, he can’t give him a scorpion in place of snake. If human beings who are prone to evil know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will our good heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask of it? 

We may wonder why “Holy Spirit” is specifically mentioned here. In Matthew’s version (cf. Matt. 7:11), what we have in that statement is “good things”, not the “Holy Spirit”. The point is that what the apostles really needed at that point in time is the Holy Spirit. They were very much aware of the danger that lay ahead; and they needed a comforter, an advocate, a counselor who would be their companion if Jesus physically leaves them. Jesus did not say that God will give them all that they want whenever they pray. No! Rather, he said that they will get the Holy Spirit which was what they needed at that point in time.

When we pray for something and don’t get it, it does not mean that God does not love or care about us. God is not like that. Children are not given everything that they ask for. If a 7-year old child asks for a car, I am sure the parents won’t buy a car for him because that is not what he needs at that point in time. At appointed times, God grants us our needs not our wants. It takes faith for us to know this and forge ahead when things do not work out as we planned.

In the first reading (cf. Gal. 3:1-5), St Paul drew the attention of the Galatians to the fact that the Spirit that they have received from God is not on account of the fact that they have kept the law but because they have asked in faith. In the Galatian Church, the central problem had been whether circumcision (a work of the law) should be a requirement for membership in the Church. Having begun in faith by which they received the Spirit, the Galatians were now ending up in the flesh by creating scandalous divisions in the Church because of their insistence on the ritual of circumcision. And this was what St Paul was warning them against. 

Whatever we do for God or in the name of God must spring from faith. If there is no faith, we are just responding to a mere duty. Even when we give alms, if that act does not spring from faith in God who dwells in those who are in need, then we are just seeking attention. Even when we pray, if it is not supported by faith, the words we utter are just empty. The effectiveness of our prayer rests on our faith in God’s power and love. It is not the frequency of our prayer or the eloquence that accompanies it or its length or its sweetness that matters. It is faith that counts in prayer and in whatever we do for God.        


       


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