THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD

 A SERMON FOR ROGATION SUNDAY

“Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” A young child may be forgiven for accepting these words of our Lord at face value.  At least, I hope so, because I know I did.  As soon as I heard that I could have anything I wanted simply by praying for it, I fell to my knees and started on my list.  And of course, I soon found out that it didn’t work that way.  Mom explained that somehow, I’d managed to misunderstand the true meaning of what our Lord was saying.  I never was granted the ability to become invisible whenever I wanted, I’ve never yet managed to fly through the air, or have superhuman strength.  Deep down inside, I kind of suspected the prayers wouldn’t really give me what I asked for, so I was left feeling a bit disappointed as well as puzzled why our blessed Lord had said this in the first place.  “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you…”  I asked… so where is it?

Over the years, I’ve run this back and forth through my mind.  And like most of you, probably, I came to realize that it wasn’t God’s fault that my prayers hadn’t been answered in the way I wanted.  There must be something wrong with my prayers.  I was asking for the impossible.  I was asking for God to waive the laws of nature, performing a miracle to give me superpowers I certainly didn’t have the wisdom to control.  My prayers had been centered on my own aspirations, the whims and fantasies of a small boy, not on Christian charity or, indeed, any other virtue.  So surely then, that must be the answer.

So I tried applying this theory to my prayers.  I started praying, when I remembered, for things that surely were for the benefit of others, rather than myself.  But as I got older still, even this answer proved inadequate.  When my grandmother was sick, I prayed for her recovery, but she died anyway.  This happened in many different scenarios, where my prayers really seemed to be based on the love of neighbor and solicitation for the needs of others.  So now what was wrong?  Well, for starters, my love for grandma was tainted by my own selfish fear of bereavement, rather than what was best for grandma.  Her age and sickness had prepared her to pass the doorway to eternity, and my enthusiastic prayers to prevent that were not her will, and certainly not God’s, but entirely my own.  So now my understanding of prayer developed a little further, but it still wasn’t quite there.  As my teenage years unfolded, doubt entered into my faith as prayers were offered, only to be seemingly ignored by God.  What was the use of praying when God just does what he wants and not what we ask for?  I thank God I had enough faith left to realize there had to be an answer I hadn’t yet figured out, and so, I persevered and kept on praying.

God of course does answer prayers.  In fact, he always answers our prayers.  It’s often in ways we don’t understand, and it’s even more often in ways we don’t even realize, but the prayers get answered all the same.  When a mother or father prays so hard that their sick child may recover, and then that child does not recover, they are often tempted to blame God that their prayers are not answered.  But God knows what’s best, and a good Catholic will resign himself to God’s will, knowing that he always does know what’s best, and that by allowing a sick child to die, he must be preventing somehow, in a way we’ll never know, a greater evil to occur.  And we can apply this to any prayer that doesn’t get answered in the way we want.  God is good.  He hears all our prayers, and then, with his infinite knowledge of all possible alternative future consequences, provides us with the very best answer to them.

So there’s the answer.  And yet, don’t we still have that lingering feeling of being a bit “let down.  After all, there’s still that apparent contradiction we think still exists.  Our Lord tells us one thing, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you,” and now we’re supposed to believe that he really doesn’t give it to us, but rather gives us something else, something he knows is better.  But maybe we don’t want what’s better, we want we asked for!  The obvious answer to this objection is that we’re being selfish.  “I want this, I want that, and I want it no matter what the consequences may be for others, or even for my own soul, my own greater well-being.”  Hopefully, this thought that we’re being selfish or too demanding on God will be enough to keep us away from falling into the trap of distrusting God or the promises made to us by his Son.

I hope that’s enough.  But I know it might not…  And so this morning, I want to point out something else to you, something that might not have occurred to you.  There are a couple of words in that promise our Lord gave us that contain the final and incontrovertible answer to any objections we might still have to his promise that God will give us whatsoever we pray for.  Let’s take another last look at that promise made by our blessed Lord, and I’ll stress for you the important part we may easily have overlooked: “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.”  Those three words “in my Name” contain the answer to all our doubts.  Whenever we ask for something, we must ask it in the name of Jesus.  It’s why our prayers always end in the words, “Through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”  That actually means something.  It’s not just the fancy formal ending to our prayer—it has a far deeper significance than we realize.  For when we ask for something in the name of Christ, this same Christ, God’s Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end, Amen—it is no longer we who are doing the asking.  He asks the Father for us.  Our Lord promised that if we utter our prayers in his holy Name, we are willingly committing our prayer entirely to him, to his will, to his infinite knowledge, his infinite justice, and his infinite mercy.  We are saying in effect, “Here’s my prayer, Lord, in the best way I know how to frame it.  Take it, Lord, make it thine, and adjust it as you see fit so that the answer to my prayer may be given in the way that best fits our heavenly Father’s divine will and Providence.  That’s how our Lord wants us to pray!

When we pray in Jesus’ name, we are voluntarily placing our request in his hands to present to his Father in the best way possible.  And whatsoever we may be asking, we can be assured that God will receive it willingly, because it has been reframed by his Son in such a way that he cannot possibly deny his request.  When we pray in Christ’s Name, we are asking him to handle our imperfect prayer in the way he deems most appropriate, we are trusting him enough to allow him to make our request for us, in the way he knows will be answered for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls.  Implicit in this prayer made in the Name of Jesus is the submission of our own will to God’s.  What we prayed so imperfectly will now be perfected by him.  And when it’s perfect, it will be answered.  Have this trust in our Lord, and you will never again doubt that God does indeed answer every single prayer that we make, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.