(Mal 3: 13-20; Ps 1: 1-4, 6; Lk 11: 5-13)
The verbs ask, seek and knock are all forms of personal request. We ask for and seek out many things each day and to knock is the universal request for entrance into a building or room. We perform these small actions daily and don’t think twice about them. They are ingrained in our daily habits. In Luke’s Gospel today, Jesus builds upon our familiarity with these basic interactions of seeking and receiving to show how they apply to our interior spiritual life as well. Jesus also illustrates the goodness of God the Father, who is the answer and solution to our greatest requests.
In our world today, there are many desires and many available solutions. The various possessions we use or own speak to this. For example, we desired to explore and travel and have developed multiple modes of transportation. We have sought dependable sustenance and so agriculture, farms, and factories were developed. We sought to expand our understanding of the world around us and we developed languages, wrote books, and have instituted universities and schools. We are active and curious creatures, always creating and improving upon the contributions of our foremothers and forefathers since our earliest of ancestors.
In Genesis 1:24 God tells us that like God, we are created with the ability to rule, that is, to effect change, “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image…”
Like God, we are creators and have been gifted with this inherently good ability to seek and fulfill our hearts callings through the miracle of creation.
As living children of a God who loves us totally, we possess the freedom to learn and change and create using our best judgement and highest abilities. God loves us and therefore trusts us to “rule” lovingly, as He has. However, as a human family, we have sometimes ruled justly and other times unjustly. We have harnessed this capacity to govern creation in many ways, some of which are guided by loving principles and others which are guided by selfish desires.
No matter how loving or selfish our motives are, the creation we live in is always a direct expression of the desires of the hearts of men and women. As creators, we ask, seek and request from creation what we hear from within us.
For example, each of our dwellings or homes reflects the specific inner desires of our hearts. Pictures, artwork, and technology and even furniture speak to one’s seeking a large family life, emotional expression, or connectivity and interaction. As this rule is expanded, we see cities and nations that reflect the values of the majority. Democratic society is even governed on the principle of voting and enactment. We do create the world we live in. Indeed, in our personal and public lives, we are living in the outward expression of our inner realms, desires and yearnings.
The awesome power that humans possess must be understood to truly grasp the gravity of the message Jesus tells his disciples in today’s Gospel reading.
“If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
Despite all that humanity has created, we are still shared creators of the earth. We did not set the planets into motion, we did not create the heavens and the earth. And while we are trusted as stewards and rulers, we are not God. We do not create life itself. Even within our mother’s womb, our parents created us jointly, but with God’s mysterious and loving blessing of life. As co-creators, this is important for us to understand so that we can govern our own hearts and our public lives justly.
Jesus offers us the greatest gift of all, the gift that takes our ability to desire and responsively create to new heights and untold promises. That gift is the Holy Spirit and is it available to all.
Jesus wants to see us flourish. He wants to see us live great lives of heroic virtue. He himself lived a life that has inspired millions of people even without any religious conviction or of different faiths. However, as Christians we listen to the words he tells us in the bible, which today is to turn to God the Father and ask for the Holy Spirit. This orientation of our hearts toward the Holy Spirit is the everlasting fulfillment of our souls. It is from the abundant life of the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ public ministry first started upon the descending of the Holy Spirit on him during his baptism by John and it is similarly the source that we can return to again and again to direct us in our own lives on earth.
We ask, seek and knock hundreds of times every day. We make decisions, we open doors, we create. Is the Holy Spirit part of the decision-making? I can think of numerous times in my own life where I have sought out answers and solutions to life’s problems until finally I found myself in the blessed sacrament chapel on my knees just praying to God. After exhausting all other earthly or modern answers and having the problem no better from the start and often having become even more muddled, I will turn to the Holy Spirit. It is after turning the Holy Spirit that I am directed spiritually and provided spiritual help from the loving God.
Made in the image of God, we are co-creators. What we do, say, think and feel matters. Each and every one of us possess the dignity of being co-creators in unique ways. But lets remember that we are not God, no matter what tempting philosophy finds its way to the headlines on Google. We are spiritual beings gifted with the Holy Spirit and that is enough. As Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel, let us direct our desires first toward our spiritual home in the Spirit. Our loving Father is always home. Let us grow in faith and watch the true desires of our hearts take shape.
