OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
What Would We Ask of God? What Would Jesus Ask?
Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name;
ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
“I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father. 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. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”
(From John 16:23b-28 – Saturday’s Gospel reading)
I wonder . . . We end our prayers in Jesus name . . .”we ask this in the name of Jesus”, or “through Christ our Lord, Amen.” We make the sign of the cross at the beginning and the end of our prayers: “In the name of . . . .” Do we use this as a formula after so many years of repetition? (I recall that teachers can often get the class quiet enough to pray by announcing loudly, “In the name of the Father . . .” Indeed, that is a formula!)
I wonder. Maybe Jesus meant to ask the way that he asks – to ask for the things that are in his heart – to live and pray in such a way that our prayers echo the prayers of Jesus. Of course God will answer, for those desires live in the heart of God.
Ask.
