31st Sunday Ordinary Time Year C
31st Sunday Ordinary Time Year C – When you need a hand – who are you going to call?
What do you do when you are in trouble? When something is vexing your mind and making life difficult, if not intolerable? What do you do? Or, if you like, who do you call or call on?
And No! The answer isn’t the Ghostbusters!
How often it seems to be that we leave things to that last point, almost the point of no return, the point of despair, before we reach out for that desperate helping hand. And I guess for an awful lot of us, this may be when we reach for prayer. At this final tipping-point point, that we reach out for God.
How much does this say about us and our relationship with God? How little does it say about how we view God that He is our last-ditch-support, our last hope-helper. When all hope is gone, then and only then do we tune in and turn to God.
We were speaking about prayer in our Confirmation-class this last Friday evening and I was asking my candidates what it is that they prayed for or could pray for, in preparation for their upcoming sacrament. And one of them answered that she, we, could pray for wisdom to know when to ask for help and courage to do just that: to go to God with all of our troubles and needs and ask Him to help us to sort them out, to get a proper perspective on them all.
We had been speaking about Confirmation being about the candidates answering God’s call to each and every one of them, to come to Him, to get to know Him better and to love Him, all the more and to then live this love in every aspect of their lives and relations: to answer His call to them.
And we agreed that this was so with any aspect of prayer. We pray to God because God has already reached out to us time after time asking us to come to Him, to know Him and to seek His comfort and solace, every day and in every way.
Prayer is not about us seeking something out of nothing, or something for nothing, from God. Prayer is us answering God’s call to us, His offer to us of help, of assistance, of support, of comfort, of advice, of an everlasting and unconditional love – if we just turn to Him and answer. Answer that call, that offer, with an open heart, an open mind and with a grateful spirit.
Zacchaeus does just that in today’s gospel reading. He answers God’s calling to come and see. To come and see Jesus. To come and get a glimpse of the man, the prophet, that people were talking about and because Jesus knew he was there, because Jesus knew what his needs were, what was in his heart, even before Zacchaeus spoke, He was able to reach out to Zacchaeus. He was able to reach out to him and take that first step. It was He who invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ house and put him at his ease and got him to open up about his wants and needs.
We need to do the same. We need to listen to the offer God is making each and every one us, each and every day, to come and see. To come and listen to all of the offers He has for us. To take up the opportunities to understand what help He is offering us and the courage to grasp that help and make use of it within our troubled lives.
When we need a hand; when we are unsure on what to do, on which choice to make for the best, this is when we need to reach out and listen to God calling us and offering us any and all help that we might need. God’s helping hand is there, always. God’s saving grace is there, always. God’s unquestioning and unconditional love is there, always.
All we need is eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart open to Him.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things that I can and wisdom to know the difference, always in Your name. Amen
Bidding Prayers
1. We pray for the wisdom to see God as our every-day support and for courage to call on Him as our first-line-help and not our last-chance-saloon. Lord in your mercy
2. For a silence in our lives that allows us to hear when God speak to us in the gentlest of breezes and the ability to understand what He says. Lord in your mercy
3. That Church and World Leaders can work together, talking and listening to each other, to create opportunities to better their peoples. Lord in your mercy
4. For an end to war and conflict. For peace and harmony between nations. For settled lives for all those disrupted and displaced. Lord in your mercy
5. For comfort and solace to all those living with illness, pain, solitude and loneliness. Lord in your mercy
6. For eternal rest for those who have died recently, especially Tony Lewis who we buried this past week, and for peace and support for their families. Lord in your mercy.
7. We ask our Lady to intercede for us as we now pray together – Hail Mary, full of grace. . . .