UNFAILING PRAYER

Meditation for Thursday of the First Week of Lent

(Esther 14:1, 3-4, 11, 13-14; Mt 7:7-12)

Today’s Lenten meditation looks at how we get answers to our prayers. We are given the example of the prayer of Queen Esther. “Esther the queen, seized with deathly anxiety, fled to the Lord.” Prayer is the way we run to the Lord. She took a humble POSTURE by lying on the ground. She began by PRAISING God, calling Him, “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you.” Secondly, Queen Esther expressed her humility and nothingness before God: “Help me, who am alone and have no helper but you, for my danger is in my hand...Come to my aid, for I am an orphan.” She expressed her FAITH in God by acknowledging through the testimony of their patriarchs that He answers those who are pleasing to Him. Finally, Esther uttered her INTENTIONS: “Save us from the hand of our enemies; turn our morning into gladness and our affliction into well-being.”

In the Gospel, Jesus said to His disciples, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” This is a great assurance; how attractive it is to pray! Jesus explains why the answer to our prayers is assured: it is because we have a good Father, and we are His children. That means when we come to pray, the ‘energies of our prayer’ must first be directed to our Heavenly Father in His Goodness, while we carry within us the ‘status’ of His children. The glory of the Father, the exaltation of His holy Name, is the most important thing in prayer. We ‘ask’, ‘seek’, and ‘knock’, not necessarily because we are in need, but mostly because we have the God who ‘answers’, ‘reveals’ and ‘opens the door of grace.’

However, our duty is to keep alive the status of CHILDREN OF GOD. This means we love God and live according to His commandments. We cannot come to God in prayer like the unrepentant hypocrites, who came to Jesus seeking for a sign: they found none! God’s faithful children have confidence that their heavenly father must give something good to them when they pray. That is why the already live out their prayer intentions. Therefore, Jesus said, “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” Amen.   

Fr Jude Chinwenwa Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R
Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church,
Tedi-Muwo, Lagos.
Thursday February 25^th, 2021.
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