One Minute Reflection – 11 October – Today’s Gospel: Luke 11:5–13 – Thursday of the Twenty-seventh week in Ordinary Time and the Memorial of St Pope John XXIII
“For everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks, finds and to him who knocks, it will be opened.”…Luke 11:10
REFLECTION – ” Now by asking, He means prayer but by seeking, zeal and anxiety, as He adds, seek and you shall find. For those things which are sought require great care. And this is particularly the case with God. For there are many things which block up our senses. As then we search for lost gold, so let us anxiously seek after God. He shows also, that though He does not forthwith open the gates, we must yet wait. Hence he adds, knock and it shall be opened to you, for if you continue seeking, you shall surely receive. For this reason and as the door shut makes you knock, therefore He did not at once consent that you might entreat.
Or by the word knock perhaps he means seeking effectually, for one knocks with the hand but the hand is the sign of a good work. Or these three may be distinguished in another way. For it is the beginning of virtue to ask to know the way of truth. But the second step is to seek how we must go by that way. The third step is when a man has reached the virtue to knock at the door, that he may enter upon the wide field of knowledge. All these things a man acquires by prayer . Or to ask indeed, is to pray but to seek, is by good works to do things becoming our prayers. And to knock is to continue in prayer without ceasing.”…St John Chrysostom (347-407) Father & Doctor of the Church
PRAYER – Help us my Lord, to discern through prayer and meditation, what You truly want of us. Then enable us to offer it to You and indeed to offer myself and all I have to You. Teach us to listen that we might hear Your answers, teach us to wait in patience for that which we ask and to trust in Your answer and teach us to constantly knock at Your door in prayer. May St John XXIII, pray for Holy Mother Church, pray for all the members of the Mystical Body, pray for our sons and daughters and for us all, pray for me! Amen
