Ask… The Father loves you

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John (Jn 16:23B-28)

Jesus said to his disciples: Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father. On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.” This is the Word of the Lord.

Listen here

I know a young man who, when still very young wanted to become a pilot. He loved flying model aircrafts and flight simulators, and was very good at both. He prayed a lot for God to help him pass the test to enter the flying academy. He failed. He was very angry. He had believed Christ’s words “If you ask anything of the Father in my name he will give it to you”. He decided that if God did not care to help him, he did not want to have anything to do with him any longer. And that was that! I have lost contact with the man, and I do not know if he still goes by his decision. He abandoned God. It’s no use asking God for help, he thought. I do not want to judge the young man. It was his reaction to a disappointment. I pray for him and I am sure God does not abandon his ‘wounded’ children.

I know an elderly woman with whom I was chatting. She told me that she does not ask God to do anything for her. “He is not my servant” she told me. “But when I face problems and have to overcome my difficulties I ask him to give me a good idea and then I work on it. And he always answers me”. She is a wise woman who is always trying to work hand in hand with God.

When I started to think about today’s gospel selection, I remembered these two stories and the two reactions to Christ’s promise that the Father will give anything we ask him in Christ’s name. I do not judge the young man who abandoned God. Who am I to judge him or anybody else? I was much edified with the elderly woman’s way of doing things. God is not a servant; he is a Father. But I will not try to defend God’s behavior, and his way of doing things. He does not need my defense! However, many a time I do not understand him, either. I know he does not ask me to understand him, but to trust him.

Sometimes I go along with the disciples who asked themselves: “What does he mean?”, when, a little earlier in the gospel Jesus said to them, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me”. Sometimes I am angry and join the Psalmist who cries out “Why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me.  … I cry, but you do not answer.” We remember easily these words from Christ’s crying from his cross. Some say he was praying Psalm 22; maybe. He was a man of prayer. But he was human, truly human, so, prayer or not, it was a cry coming from a suffering human being.

So can we get angry at God? Yes, of course, for one gets angry at somebody who we believe truly exists, who has the power and who promised to give us what we ask for, without any conditions, except one, “to ask in Christ’s name”. So, what does he mean? Is it only to mention Christ’s name in our petition? I think it is more profound than that. For our prayer has to be pronounced in a way that Jesus himself can handle it. The liturgy teaches us that all our prayers are directed to the Father, “through Christ, our Lord”. St Thomas Aquinas reminds us that “the Church does not ask him [Jesus] as an intercessor. We do not say, ‘Christ, pray for us’". At the end of the Eucharistic prayer the priest pronounces the doxology, “Through him, and with him, and in him”. And the ‘him’ is Jesus! Writing to the Romans, St Paul tells us that Christ Jesus intercedes for us. Thomas explains: “There are two natures in Christ: his human nature, by which he is the mediator between God and us (1 Tim 2:5) [through him we see the Father (Jn 14, 9)], and his divine nature, by which he is one God with the Father” (Commentary on the Gospel of John). In today’s selection Jesus tells the disciples: “I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you”.

If again we ask: “What does he mean?” He might tell us, you do not need to understand, for the mystery of the Incarnation is well beyond your mind’s ability to grasp. You only need to believe, to remember and to trust. We have to believe, that is, to accept that Jesus is truly God and truly man. We have to remember that “the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God”. And we have to trust him for he is a Father, from whom all fatherhood is named (Eph 3, 15). “He loved us first” (1 Jn 4, 19). He loved us into being, and he sent us his Son “so that we can have life to the full” (Jn 10, 10). Jesus tells us: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Mt 7, 11)

So let us follow the example of the elderly lady and ask God to inspire in us good ideas so we can become true collaborators with him. I love the prayer the priest says on the offerings of bread and wine during the Mass. He says separately on the bread and on the wine: “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread [and the wine] we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life [and our spiritual drink]. God’s gifts and human work together can work great miracles!