Sunday, July 24
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.”
Reflection
“Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.”
– cf. Psalm 138
We pray this response together during our Mass today, after receiving the model of Abraham who persists in his interceding with God for an outpouring of mercy on the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. A simple line, but it expresses a deep reality that is always true: In the moments we call out for help, the Lord answers, but even more than that, the Lord sustains us in life with mercy whether we realize it or not. God is always patient with us, and his transformative grace is always sufficient.
In our lives, some of the most powerful encounters with God, or of experiencing the magnitude of His love for us, come from the echo of Psalm 138, by calling to mind our many challenges, fears, and wounds of the past or present and seeing them from the perspective of how God not only carries us through them, but how in His generosity also provided unexpected graces. Finding the Lord and recognizing that he has continually prevented us from being crushed or left lifeless after enduring intense pain and grief leads us to an indescribable strength. In these kinds of profound encounters, the love of God is revealed to have endless depth, and with these moments comes peace—a peace that doesn’t necessarily fix or immediately heal, but one that assures us we are loved, that we are not forgotten. These encounters free us and free our hearts for trust and perseverance.
In our Gospel today, Jesus teaches us to turn to God as a generous Father, because that’s who he is. God who is in need of nothing from us, gives entirely to us.
Jesus leading us to the Father brings us back to the reality of our most important identity, what matters most about each of us, namely, that we are beloved daughters and sons of so generous a Father. Our lives then are to be lived out with trust as a response to this love. Rather than see Jesus’ familiar words today of asking, seeking and knocking as simply being about persevering in prayer, receive them as an invitation to imitate in your life the radical generosity of God the Father. When others come to us asking, seeking, and knocking, may we have the grace to extend just as radically to others the mercy and care of our heavenly Father that we have first received. You might just be the answer to someone else’s prayer.
God bless,
Fr. Brendan Foley
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