‘EVERYONE WHO ASKS RECEIVES’

Meditation for Thursday of the First Week of Lent

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

Queen Esther found herself in one of such situations when it is difficult to pray. She was consumed by anxiety and uncertainty about what would befall her and her people next. She felt alone, abandoned and helpless. This is the mood that many people are feeling in our country today. In the face of evil and life challenges, we either pray intensely or abandon prayer completely. Queen Esther prostrated herself before the Lord and prayed eagerly from morning until evening. She offered up to God her anxiety, and asked in her helplessness; she sought for protection from the danger ahead, and asked for God’s companionship in her aloneness. Esther did not deny the evil ahead, but prayed to God saying, “Save us from the hand of our enemies; turn our mourning into gladness and our affliction into well-being.”

Meditate on the uncomfortable disposition from which Esther offered her prayers. Pause, and see through her tears the loud cry of Jesus from the cross to the Father. And it is on this ‘altar of the cross’ that all our prayers are answers, for we lay before the cross of Jesus, as Esther prostrated before the Lord, and offer our prayers through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the assurance we have that our Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him. Jesus urges us to pray with confidence, saying, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

 

Therefore, this Lenten season we pray ‘from the cross’ as we mingle our prayers with penance and abstinence, offering our supplications with the loud cry of Jesus on the cross. In this way, every difficult and challenging situation becomes a prayer intention offered through Jesus Christ. Think about the many sorrows we bear, the tensions we face like Queen Esther, the heartbreaks and uncertainties that dot our paths. Now, see the victory you have when in Jesus your cross has become an altar of prayer, your challenges become prayer points. As we prostrate before the cross this season through our Lenten observances, Jesus says, “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” Amen.

 

Fr Jude Chinwenwa Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R

Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church,

Tedi-Muwo, Ojo, Lagos.

Thursday March 2^nd, 2023.

www.nwachinwe.blogspot.com

9^th Lenten Meditation for 2023