+ Our readings today are like a
giant mirror set in front of our total selves: what do we see when the smoke and cheers are gone,
and we are confronted with our true selves? If we do not see ourselves as
dependent, fragile yet willing persons, then we are not seeing ourselves
correctly, and we are not poised to live a happy and productive life.
If we lack humility,
if we fail to find the need to ask for help, if we fail to go out of ourselves
and put ourselves in the shoes of others: then we are that much less than
human, less than God intended us to be, less than we can ask of ourselves.
That this applies to
everyone, no matter birthright or ranking, no matter social status or political
standing is seen in our first reading from the Book of Esther. As regent,
Esther knew she was up against it, she was baffled as to how to deal with her
enemies in order to protect and defend the people in her charge that she loved
so dearly, truly and honestly: and so she turned to the primary tool God gave
us, each and every one: the instinct to ask, seek, knock, the instinct to pray.
And so Esther, seized
with mortal anguish, had recourse to the Lord, she and her “cabinet” – her
handmaids, lay prostrate upon the ground, from morning to night: imploring,
beseeching and simply asking the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… to save us
from the hands of our enemies, turning our mourning into gladness, and our
sorrows into wholeness.
What a powerful and
persuasive image this is: an earthly potentate seeing herself in right perspective
before the Potentate of Potentates: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
And God heard her
prayer and answered it: and gladness and wholeness was restored to Queen Esther
and her people!
And so, when Jesus
tells us to “ask, seek and knock,” he appeals to the innate mechanism we have
inside us “to watch out and provide for the welfare of our children” – to ask,
seek, knock and find what will sustain and nourish them: fish of some kind and
sort.
We know how to pray
for our children, in other words, and so we know how we should pray for other,
equally important matters in our lives, like the running of our family, our
institutions, our governments and in due process, our Church.
The posture of humility
will always be rewarded with a swift answer when the concerns of others is at
stake.
The question I pose
now, today, is this: are we, all of us, including leaders, presidents, potentates
of all kinds, and hierarchs, including me, are we humble enough to be heard by
God, are we even self-less enough to engage the internal mechanism of praying –
or are we too stuck on ourselves, our own agendas, and our own sense of
righteousness.
A clean heart create for us, O God, a truly
self-less and loving heart; give us back the joy of your salvation, your saving
help because we ask it in all humility.
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