ASK, AND YE SHALL RECEIVE

A SERMON FOR ROGATION SUNDAY

“Ask, and ye shall receive,” says Our Lord in today’s Gospel.  We have heard these words spoken often enough before.  The words of our divine Saviour, telling us that if we want something, well then we’re supposed to ask God for it.

Did you ever stop and wonder why though?  After all, if God knows everything, including what we need and what we want, why doesn’t he just give them to us?  Why does he wait to be asked?

There is no question that God does want us to ask him for the things we want.  Apart from the Gospel today we also have the example of the Our Father.  In this prayer which Christ himself taught to his disciples, you’ll notice that after a brief introduction in which you give glory to God (“Hallowed be thy Name!”) there follows a list of petitions, things you’re asking for:  “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil”.  You’ll notice he doesn’t stop at “Thy will be done.”  It’s not enough simply to acknowledge that God’s providential will will provide all we want and need.  No.  We have to ask for specific things—daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance from evil, and so on.  If this is how the Son of God wants us to pray, then it’s absolutely certain that we are supposed to ask our Father in heaven for the things we should have.   But again…  why?

These last few days leading up to the Feast of the Ascension are known as Rogationtide, from the Latin word rogare, meaning “to ask.”  In other words this is the time of year devoted in particular to placing our requests and petitions before the throne of God.  On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, it is the common practice in Catholic churches to walk humbly in procession, chanting the Litany of the Saints, imploring God’s blessing on the new crops which the farmers plant at this time, but more generally for the good estate of Christ’s Church and our own needs and aspirations.

This then is the time to ask, so that we may indeed receive.  But before we take a look at how we should ask, let’s answer that vexing little question why we have to ask.  After all, God already knows all things. And so he already knows exactly what we need before we ask for it.  Why doesn’t he just anticipate those needs and provide what we want without waiting to be asked?  Well, first of all, if we didn’t actually ask God, if we simply wanted something and automatically received it, God would actually be removed from the whole process.  There would be no reminder to us that all good things come from above, from the hand of the loving God who cares for us and loves us.  Therefore, the first reason we ask is simply to provide us with that necessary reminder that there is a loving God who bestows his favours on his children in need.

The other and more important reason is that God commands us to ask because he likes to be asked.  It is an integral element of his love for us.  Having to ask for something we don’t have is an acknowledgment before our loving Father that we depend on him and on his bounty.  And God wants us to depend on him, just as loving parents want their young children to be dependent on them.  Even though parents have the duty to feed their children, we do not expect those children to just dip their hands into the cookie jar whenever they get the urge.  We like to be asked, don’t we!  Similarly, we, the children of God, are expected to ask him for what we need.  It would be wrong to just take whatever we want whenever we want it—so wrong, in fact, that it would lead us not only into temptation, but to the very gates of hell.  It is one of our primary duties to subjugate our inordinate appetites to the laws of God.  And even if the things we want are permissible (for example, for a pay increase so that we can afford our mounting bills, or for the cure of a loved one from some serious disease or sickness), we can never take it for granted that we will get what we want, merely because we want it.  We must ask God.  We must rely on his divine providence to give us what we ask for.  And most importantly of all, we must submit to God’s will, if and when he decides, in his infinite wisdom, that it isn’t in our best interests to receive what we are asking for.  After all, no father would give his son the bread he is asking for if he knows it’s poisoned.  And God knows all things, what a mess we would make of our lives if we won the lotto, what a life of immorality our loved one would lead if he were spared from his terminal illness.

When we ask of God, it impresses upon us the realization of our dependency and need, reminding us that without the help of God we would have absolutely nothing, not even life itself, because “every good gift, every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

And just as there is no variableness neither shadow of turning in God, so too the prayers we make today are the same as those humbly offered on bended knees by Christians since the very birth of the Church:  freedom from pain and mishap, deliverance from sin and temptation, happiness in love and marriage, increase in virtue, prosperity and success in business—nothing has changed, we continue to present our shopping list of needful things, some important and some definitely less so, but all desired with childlike simplicity and trust in the Divine Providence of our Father in heaven.

And there is our clue on how we must pray.  It has to be with that childlike simplicity.  We must become, as Christ taught us, we must pray, indeed we must be, as little children.  Even as the most innocent and simple of these children‒the newborn, the little infants.  These tiny creatures, still with not a thought in their head, without the use of reason, not able to walk or talk or even turn themselves over in their cribs, they are still able to do one thing and only one thing, and they do it well.  They are able to ask for the things they need.  They instinctively know that if they ask, they will receive.  They express their petitions in the form of crying.  When babies cry, it’s not because they are sad, it’s not because it’s raining, or because they can’t afford a new iPhone.  It’s because they need something, and they are communicating this need to those around them who will provide what they need.  And so they cry—they’re asking to be fed, to be burped, to be changed.  From the day they are born, they have this instinct built into their very nature, to ask for what they want.

And “except ye become as little children,” says Our Lord, “ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  It’s why Christ was born of the Blessed Virgin and was laid in swaddling clothes, to teach us that if we are to be Christians, followers of Christ, we must follow him not just as God, nor even as a Man, but in this utter simplicity and dependency of a Child.  We must become as little children, just like he was, helpless in the arms of our dear God who sustains us in all things, nourishing, protecting, loving.  And like little children, let us pray not for trivialities but for the things that are essential—you’ll find a list in the Our Father.  Don’t ask God for frivolous, material things.  The accumulation of mere “things” can become an insatiable obsession, and will be of no help to you when you stand before God.  Rather, pray for the things you really need, your daily bread.  And then pray for  the other, less material, things, that you need—those things that will help you save your soul.  Pray for the graces to lead a good life, that you might not fall into temptation, that you might be delivered from evil.  Ask these things and you shall most certainly receive.