Thursday in the First Week of Lent, March 10, 2022

Matthew 7:7-12

Jesus said to his disciples: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.”

The Lord Jesus tells us to ask, to seek, and to knock, and what we desire will be granted to us.  The implication here is that if we do not ask, seek, and knock, we will not be granted what we desire.  We also know that we must be persistent in our asking, seeking, and knocking from the Lord’s teachings, as in the parable of the widow and the corrupt judge (cf. Luke 18, 1-8).  Thus, he is telling us to keep asking, seeking, and knocking until we are granted the answer to our prayers.  This praying should not become routine, however so that we are merely repeating the same request in the same words day after day.  We need to pray earnestly, imitating the Lord Jesus, who  prayed “with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications” (Hebrews 5, 7).  Constant and insistent prayer to Almighty God for peace would prevent or, at least, shorten wars.  We should also pray in anticipation, that is, for something before we need it.  This follows from the Our Father, in which we pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom, for our daily bread, and for the grace that our faith not be put to “the test”.  We can also understand “asking, seeking, and knocking” in another way: we ask for temporal goods, such as health; we seek the grace with which to please God; and we knock at the gate of heaven for admittance.

“Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish?”  That is, who would give his child something useless or dangerous, knowing it to be so, but a parent who did not love his child?  “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the child of her womb? And if she should forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49, 15).  So even if a parent would give a sake to his son or daughter, God would give only what is good and necessary.  We note here that the Lord gives an example of someone asking for food and not for a luxury item.

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”  Jesus rewords Leviticus 19, 18, where it is written, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  In the context of the Gospel it tells us to answer the requests other people make of us, so that we may imitate the generosity of Almighty God.  Of course, we do this within our limitations, such as our limited resources and abilities:  if a friend asks us for money that we need to buy food or medicine for ourselves or family members, then we must decline that request.  That is to say, the commandment is not absolute as if we had infinite power and resources.  “This is the law and the prophets.”  This commandment, along with the commandment to love God with all our strength, sums up the whole moral law laid out in detail and sign throughout the writings of the law and the prophets.  

The Lord’s exhortations and instructions on prayer and his giving us his law to follow tell us much about his passionate desire to help us here on earth and to receive us into heaven.