Knock And The Door Will Be Opened To You
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C
By Father Mark Morley, St. Ann’s Parish, Ancaster, Ontario
Lectionary 111 – Genesis 18.20-32, Colossians 2.12-14, Luke 11.1-13
July 25, 2010
Notice how the disciple saw Jesus praying and how he wanted Jesus to teach him to pray just as John had taught his disciples how to pray. This disciple realized that there is a connection between prayer and identity, that how one prays defines who one is. John taught his disciples how to pray. So this disciple wanted Jesus to teach him how to pray. In other words, he sought to identify with Jesus by praying as Jesus prayed. Two thousand years later, Christian identity is defined by the Our Father. When our parish community gathers together for Mass, we say the Our Father. When we celebrate baptisms, we say the Our Father. When Catholics from all over the world gather in Rome, they say the Our Father. Sometimes people who speak different languages say it together in Latin to further symbolize unity. When Christians from various denominations come together to pray, they say the Our Father. All Christians identify with the Our Father and we are united with all Christians when we pray the Our Father. If there is one pray a Christian must know by heart, it’s the Our Father. If there is one prayer that Christian parents must teach their children, it’s the Our Father, the prayer that Jesus taught us. And yet Jesus’ teaching begins with the Our Father but it doesn’t end with the Our Father. The Our Father is essential to his teaching. But there is more.
The Our Father takes up a relatively small portion of today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke. After teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus teaches them about the nature of prayer. The parable of the friend at midnight is about the persistence of petitionary prayer. To petition God in prayer is to ask God for something. In the First Reading from the Book of Genesis, we see Abraham engaged in petitionary prayer when he tries to convince God that Sodom should be spared for the sake of the few remaining righteous people. Like Abraham, we are to be persistent in prayer. The general intercessions said at Mass are essentially the same type of petitions week after week. Typically, we pray for the Church, for the world, for those in need and for our parish community, which includes prayers for our deceased brothers and sisters. Much of the Our Father is petitionary prayer. In it we ask God the Father to give us our daily bread and forgive us our sins. However, Jesus teaches us that prayer is more than just asking for things.
After teaching about petitionay prayer and the importance of persistence, Jesus teaches about meditative prayer and the significance of searching. By meditative prayer I simply mean prayer that is less concerned about asking for things and more concerned about seeking a way of being, seeking a way of being in relationship with God. Jesus says: “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Luke 11.10) These phrases represent stages in spiritual growth. Asking is good. But at some point, maybe after a long period of persistence, we realize that there is something else that we long for in the depth of our being. We may not know what that something else is. But we do know that we have to stop asking and start searching. This search could be a spiritual quest for deeper meaning in one’s life. It could be a spiritual longing for deeper relationships with God and with others. It could be the discernment of a vocation. Whatever the search, meditative prayer entails an element of mystery. Just as asking for things leads to searching for something more, searching leads to knocking on a door behind which lies a mystery. When Jesus teaches that the door will be opened, he’s not talking about an actual door. Knocking at the door is a metaphor for trust. We don’t know what’s on the other side, what changes lie ahead. The door being opened is a metaphor for how meditative prayer reveals a mystery. Like Jesus, mystics throughout the ages have employed metaphors to teach about spiritual realities.
If you want to learn more about meditative prayer, I suggest you pick up some spiritual reading. If you are in the habit of doing some summer reading, why not add some spiritual reading to your list? There are plenty of spiritual classics. Father Dan recommends Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ. Seminarian Dave Walter recommends Saint Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life. I recommend Butler’s Lives of the Saints and Saint Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle. In her book, St. Teresa employs the metaphor of searching through a mansion with many rooms to guide the reader through his or her own spiritual journey. If you are uncertain about where to start, try reading the Bible, in particular, read the Old Testament prophets or the Letters of Saint Paul. Books are good for spiritual growth not only because they contain helpful information and inspiration. But reading itself can be done meditatively. In this Diocesan Year of the Family, you might consider sitting down with your spouse or other family members once a week and taking turns reading to each other, and listening to each other.
If you don’t have the time to sit around reading, then consider listening to a godcast. “Godcast” is the name given to Internet podcasts that promote spirituality and religion. Podcasts are files that can be downloaded to your computer, mp3 player or mobile phone, and then listened to at your convenience. Some godcasts are daily, many are weekly. Some of them are based on the daily scripture readings used at Mass. If you do a Web search on godcasts, you will find hundreds of them. Unfortunately, there is a lot of junk out there, some are geared more towards entertainment than spiritual growth. However, one that you might want to try is called pray-as-you-go.org. You can find it by doing a search on “pray as you go.” Whether you read a spiritual classic or listen to a godcast, the important thing is that you take time to be receptive to God and allow yourself to be open to the Holy Spirit.
Petitionary prayer is essential. Good petitionary prayer is of the heart. In a heartfelt manner we ask God to take care of our needs and the needs of others. Meditative prayer isn’t essential, but it’s not exactly optional. Like I said, if we spend enough time engaged in persistent petitionary prayer, it is likely that we will start longing to relate to God in a different way. If petitionary prayer is of the heart, then meditative prayer is of the spirit. If petitionary prayer is talking to God, then meditative prayer is listening to God. That’s what searching is. It’s taking the time to listen to God, to wait upon God. If petitionary prayer is an attempt to change God’s mind, then meditative prayer is giving God an opportunity to change our hearts. Searching opens our hearts to be transformed by Christ and knocking opens our spirits to welcome the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says that we can be assured that God our Father will give us good gifts when we ask for them, just as parents give good things to their children. However, Jesus also says that the Father is even more generous when we seek the gift of the Holy Spirit:
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” (Luke 11.9)