A prayer for this Sunday

From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday, 3rd February 2019

In the gospel today, we hear that at first the crowd in the synagogue is astonished by the gracious words that came from Jesus lips but in no time “everyone in the synagogue is enraged” with him and want to get rid of him.  This prayer I want to share with you is about what happened then and what can still happen. I found it early in the week when I wasn’t looking for it at all, and then was happily surprised when I discovered what the gospel was for today. I felt sure I was meant to share it with you.

Heavenly Father, as parents, grandparents, teachers, priests, we sometimes find it difficult to communicate with our young people. Help us to have the freedom to say what we see is right and true. Help us, at the same time, to be like Jesus who wasn’t angry but understood that no prophet is ever accepted in his own house. Give us the humility to trust that you will send someone else, a Jesus person, who will be able to touch the hearts of our young people.

We thank you that you send us people like Jesus who shock us into seeing that we’ve been hiding behind the identity of the group we belong to. They remind us you have also blessed people who don’t belong to our group, like the humble widow visited by the great prophet, Elijah, and mentioned by Jesus in the gospel today. It’s a painful lesson, especially when coming from someone in our own household and we can complain, like the Jews today, “This is Joseph’s son, surely; what right has he to be teaching us?” But it can be a moment of great grace for us. A moment when we realise we must stop looking down on people of other ethnic or religious groups, and join with members of other churches, religions and faiths, in asking for your mercy and forgiveness.

Father, you know that often our first response is to become enraged with those who tell us these home truths. We are liable to take them to the brow of the hill our church is built on, intending to throw them down the cliff of rejection. We thank you that the Jesus you sent us slipped out of our grasp and walked away, leaving us to ponder this truth. We thank you that eventually we will find life in the gracious words that came from his lips. Amen