Posted on 05/15/2021 1:17:17 PM PDT by MurphsLaw
Sixth Week of Easter
John 16:23b–28
Friends, today’s Gospel urges us to expect the Father to answer our prayers because he loves us. “On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God.”
Keep in mind that prayer is not designed so much to change God’s mind or to tell God something he doesn’t know. God isn’t like a big city boss or a reluctant pasha whom we have to persuade. He is, rather, the one who wants nothing other than to give us good things—though they might not always be what we want.
The entire point of religion is to make us humble before God and to open us to the path of love. Everything else is more or less a footnote. Liturgy, prayer, the precepts of the Church, the commandments, sacraments, sacramentals—all of it—are finally meant to conform us to the way of love. When they instead turn us away from that path, they have been undermined.
26 In that day you shall ask in my name; and I say not to you, that I will ask the Father for you:
27 For the Father himself loveth you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God."+++
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.