16 June 2016 - words like a flaming furnace

[ Today's Readings ]

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

And yet he asks us to ask. We recognize our need. Then we lift our eyes to the one who can help.

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name

We lift our eyes to the one who not only has the power to help but the love and desire to help. He is our Father! Do we really hallow that name in our hearts? If we do it is easier to prefer his will to our own. We can trust that he loves us even when we don't understand the ways he shows it.

thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Even if this becomes like the prayer of Jesus in the garden, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done" (see Luke 22:42), we can still make the prayer if the name of the Father is properly hallowed within our hearts and minds.

Only after we hallow his name do we come to him with our needs. These are our needs as best we understand them. He helps us to see what they are.

Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

He already knows all of these needs. But our priorities might be different. We might be more interested in other things more than the things for which he tells us to pray. This prayer helps to show us what our true needs are. It reveals our dependence on the only one who can give us the daily bread we need, the only one who can give us the grace to be merciful, the only one who can forgive us and keep us from temptation and evil.

He is not only able to give us what we truly need. He is also willing. He is willing as long as we ourselves are willing to let his grace and mercy flow through us to others.

If you forgive others their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others,
neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.

This is how Elijah's "words were as a flaming furnace" and how Elisha "wrought many marvels by his mere word." They first hallow the name of the Father in their hearts. The Douay-Rheims gets the words of Elijah just right, "With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts". No idols come before God. No personal plans come before his will. This is how the prayer of these famous prophets has power. It is power which our prayer can also have. It is power which simply allows the LORD to be present and to do what he desires.

Fire goes before him
and consumes his foes round about.
His lightnings illumine the world;
the earth sees and trembles.