Prayer and Pope Francis’ ”Penitential Pilgrimage”

The Gospel of today (Lk 11:1-13) teaches us to pray with confidence and perseverance. This week we have the opportunity to put this teaching into practice during Pope Francis' "Penitential pilgrimage". With him, we pray that this pilgrimage "will contribute to the journey of healing and reconciliation already undertaken".

Gn 18:20-32

Lk 11:1-13

 

One night, two young brothers were staying over at their grandmother’s house. It was just a week or so away from the younger brother’s birthday. As their grandmother was tucking the brothers in before bed, she reminded them to say their prayers. She then left the room to go next door, leaving the door ajar. The older brother said his prayers first, giving thanks to God for his family. Then the younger brother prayed. After he had thanked God as his older brother had, he suddenly raised his voice shouting, “And God, for my birthday next week, can you please get me a PlayStation 5!” The older brother then turned to the younger brother and said, “you don’t have to shout. God isn’t deaf.” To this, the younger brother responded, “I know, but grandma is”. 

 

Like that younger brother, we too can struggle with prayer and how it works. The first reading and the Gospel point us in the right direction.

 

To start, we should acknowledge that prayer is difficult for all of us. I think we can all be embarrassed by our prayer life sometimes. We often assume that everyone else has an amazing prayer life. All others have to do, we might think, is close their eyes and they are immediately filled with the presence of God. This is not the case! We all struggle with prayer, myself included. When I pray, I seldom have incredible insights or experience strong positive emotions. I can easily lose concentration and become distracted. I received a good reality check about the difficulty of prayer when I read an interview with the now deceased Cardinal Hume. Towards the end of his life this devout man was asked about his prayer life.  He responded:

Oh, I just keep plugging away. At its best it’s like being in a dark room with someone you love. You can’t see them, but you know they’re there.

In today’s Gospel, we find the disciples also struggling with pray. They ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. That the disciples and great Christians such as Cardinal Hume also struggled with knowing how to pray gives me hope. We all find prayer difficult.

 

A common struggle we all have in prayer has to do with that fact that the things we ask for often do not come to pass. This is a major tension in our prayer life. On the one hand, Jesus encourages us to trust that God is a loving Father who will always give us – his children – good things. This message comes across in the Gospel. After teaching his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells them to persevere in prayer, trusting that God the Father will give them what they need. On the other hand, we have all experienced that we sometimes do not receive what we ask for in prayer. This can be a very painful experience. We can feel that God is not listening, that our prayer is useless. How can we make sense of this tension in our prayer life? The prayer that Jesus taught us gives us a hint. In Luke’s Gospel – which we heard today – Jesus teaches us to prayer that “his [God’s] kingdom come”. In Matthew’s version of the prayer, he adds to this that we should ask God that “his will be done”. Although Jesus encourages us to ask God for what we need, he also wants us to know that we should desire that God’s will be done in our life. God always wants what is best for us. We ask for many things in prayer, but sometimes we struggle to know what is best for ourselves. Looking back, I recognize that there are some things that I asked God for in prayer that weren’t really what was best for me. I can see now that what actually happened to me at that moment, though not what I wanted at first, was actually what was best for me.  Prayer always does something. The first thing prayer does is change our heart. When we pray God slowly changes our hearts so that we begin to desire what God desires for us. Even when our prayers seem to have no result, we should continue praying, trusting that God is changing us as well as our circumstances.

 

This week, we, together with Pope Francis and Catholics throughout Canada, have much to pray for. From July 24 – 29 Pope Francis will be visiting Canada on what he has called a “penitential pilgrimage”. The idea of pilgrimage expresses well the nature of prayer that we hear about in the readings today. A pilgrim is someone who perseveres in prayer, being authentic and even daring with God in prayer as Abraham was in the first reading. At his Angelus address on July 17, Pope Francis explained the nature of his visit:

Dear brothers and sisters of Canada, as you know, I will come among you especially in the name of Jesus to meet and embrace the indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious institutes, have contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation that, in the past, have severely harmed native communities in various ways. For this reason, I recently received some groups in the Vatican, representatives of indigenous peoples, to whom I expressed my sorrow and solidarity for the harm they have suffered. And now I am about to embark on a penitential pilgrimage, which I hope, with God's grace, will contribute to the journey of healing and reconciliation already undertaken.

 

This week we are encouraged by Pope Francis to pray fervently that the journey towards truth and reconciliation continues. Although there remains much to do, having Pope Francis come to Canada is an extremely significant milestone along this journey. While efforts continue nationally and internationally, this journey is something we continue locally. I have been so encouraged to hear of all the important initiatives that have been undertaken at St. Peter’s Parish, under the direction of the Indigenous reconciliation committee, including the video series which has provided the opportunity to listen and learn from indigenous people. These initiatives will continue in the future so that we can go further on this path Pope Francis’ visit encourages us to follow. In the coming days, let pray for the penitential pilgrimage of Pope Francis, as he has asked. As we are encouraged in the readings today, let us pray with persistence and confident, trusting that God cares for us and answers our prayers. 

Hospitality and Discipleship (16 Sunday OT, year C)

Hospitality and Discipleship, 16th Sunday Ordinary Time, Year C  

Today was my first Mass as pastor of St. Peter's, New Westminster. In this homily, I reflect on two values, hospitality and discipleship, that are highlighted by today's readings (Gen 18:1-10; Luke 10:38-42). These values are important in any Christian community or parish.

It is so good to be here with you today! When I was first told that I would be made pastor at St. Peter’s, I was first very surprised, then I became nervous. After the news sank in, I felt very happy. Coming to St. Peter’s feels like coming home. As many of you know, I grew up in this parish. St. Peter’s really feels like family. I was baptized here. I used to altar serve here, sitting on the chair and watching the priest give homilies up here, sometimes falling asleep! I was formed in my faith here. I learned what it meant to be a follower of Jesus in this community that has been shaped by the Oblate fathers. Although I know I have big shoes to fill, taking over as pastor here at St. Peter’s is an honour and a joy.

 

For me, it is very providential that we have the readings we do for today’s Mass. The first reading and Gospel highlight two important values that should characterize any Christian community, any parish: hospitality, and discipleship. These are two values that I always experienced at St. Peter’s.

 

The first reading emphasizes the importance of hospitality and welcome. There we heard the story from Genesis where the Lord visits Abraham and Sarah. In this visit, Abraham and Sarah provide extraordinary hospitality to the Lord. They are exceedingly polite. They make the best possible food. They are attentive to every need of their guests. If there was a prize for #1 hosts, they would win it!! Now, we may think: “of course they would show such great hospitality, the Lord is the one visiting them! If God visited me, I would also be hospitable!!” What makes this episode from Genesis so interesting, however, is that while we – the readers of the story – are aware that the guest is the Lord, this fact is not clear to Abraham and Sarah. The visit is a kind of test. Will Abraham and Sarah be hospitable to unknown visitors or not? In the end, they pass the test and their visitor, the Lord, rewards their hospitality with the promise of a son, Isaac. The message of this story is clear: treat visitors with hospitality and kindness, you never know if your visitor will be God! The value of hospitality and welcome is a message Pope Francis has been communicating to us strongly. More and more, the Church should be a welcoming and hospitable place, especially to those in most need, those on the margins.

 

In the Gospel we learn that as important as hospitality is, the central part of our identity is being a disciple of Jesus. Whenever I hear the story about Martha and Mary in the Gospel, I feel sorry for Martha. She seems to get a raw deal from Jesus. Here she is running around doing all the work while Mary takes it easy with Jesus. Then Jesus scolds her. This seems unfair! We need to look a bit deeper at the story to see what is going on. Jesus isn’t criticizing what Martha is doing – remember, hospitality is a good thing. Rather, Jesus wants to ensure that Mary is allowed to continue what it is she is doing. “Mary has chosen the better part, it should not be taken away from her”. What is this “better part”? By being around Jesus, Mary is not doing nothing, lazing about. The way she is close to Jesus is meant to symbolize or show that she has chosen to be a disciple of Jesus. In Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, being a disciple is symbolized by sitting at the feet of someone. In Acts (22:3) Paul conveys that he was a disciple of Gamaliel by saying he sat at his feet. In addition, listening to the word of someone makes you a disciple of that person. So, Mary has chosen to be a disciple of Jesus since she sits at His feet and listens to his word. Mary will not always be seated. She will certainly go out and serve others as Jesus calls us to. The Gospel wants to show us that being a follower of Jesus is the central part of who we are as baptized people – it is the “better part”.

 

Another radical message of the Gospel is that all – without exception - are called to be disciples of Jesus. All the baptized are called to use their talents, to get involved in their communities – parish, work environment, city community – and build up the kind of world that Jesus calls us to build up. Sometimes we can fall into trap of thinking that only some people in the Church are called to be disciples, or that some people in the Church are more important disciples than others. We can think that only clergy, religious or the “hard core” Catholics are somehow a different class of Christian. The following apocryphal story illustrates this. You may have heard about the time the Pope visited America. He was picked up at the airport in a limo whose driver was a good Catholic. As they were driving away from the airport, the Pope declared a sudden urge to drive. The driver could not say no to the Pope and so they switched spots. The Pope got in the driver’s seat and the chauffeur sat in the back, behind the tinted windows. As the Pope started to drive, it became clear that he had a love of speed. He started accelerating and accelerating until he was speeding. A police officer saw the speeding limo and puller them over. The officer took one look at who was driving the limo and went back to the cruiser to call his chief. He reported that he pulled over a limo with an extremely important VIP inside. The chief asked, “who was in the limo, the mayor”? The policeman told him: “No, someone more important than the mayor”. Then the chief asked: “Is it the governor?”. The policeman answered: “No, someone more important than the governor”. The chief finally asked: “Is it the President?”. The policeman answered: “No, someone even more important than the President”. This made the chief very angry and he bellowed: “Now who is more important than the President?!” The policeman responded, “I don’t know who he is but he must be important since he has the Pope as his chauffeur!”

 

What I like about this fictional story is that it plays with our expectations about who is important in the Church. We expect that the Pope is more important than others. In the story, however, there is a reversal. A chauffeur is shown to be more important than the Pope. All the baptized have equal dignity. All the baptized are called to participate in the mission of the Church – to be disciples. The Gospel highlights this message. That a woman like Mary could be a disciple was controversial for people when Luke was writing his Gospel. Rather than being a disciple, going out and carrying out the mission of Jesus, some people would have wanted Mary to rather be focused on domestic tasks. In the story of Marth and Mary, Martha becomes symbolic of these individuals. In his response, Jesus is clear. Let her be a disciple! All are encouraged to live fully their baptismal call to discipleship.

 

Overall, the readings today emphasize two great values that should be found in any Christian community in any parish. Parishes should be a place where hospitality is shown. Where all are made to feel welcome, appreciated, and valued. Second, parishes are places where all are encouraged to be disciples of Jesus. The parish is a family and we are all a part of it. These values are always something I experienced here at St. Peter’s. Because of this, I am very happy to be back here. I look forward to journeying with you all as we follow Jesus together. This is my first time as pastor. I will certainly do my best, but I will of course make mistakes as I learn. I appreciate so much your prayers and support!

Against perfectionism

"Don't make the enemy of the good". Today's Gospel seems to apply this common adage to our spiritual life. Although none of us are perfect, Jesus loves and accepts us and calls us to serve.