We are in the first full week of Lent, and today’s readings tell us not to be shy in our prayer, but to ask God, to beg God for what we need.
In the first reading we hear of Esther, a Jewish woman who became queen of Persia and hid her Jewish identity from the king. When the Jewish people came under threat of death, she begged God for the courage to face her husband. She wanted to tell him the truth of who she really is and ask him to spare her people. Before she saw the king, she prayed from morning until night, lying on the ground in anguish, begging God:
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you.
Help me, who am alone and have no help but you,
for I am taking my life in my hand….
Now help me, who am alone and have no one but you,
O LORD, my God.
Her simple, moving prayer, and the ultimate success of her petition reminds us to pray for courage when we are afraid.
In Matthews’s gospel, Jesus tells us:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
In speaking of this gospel Pope Francis noted, “That’s an almost incredible guarantee that our prayers will always be heard.” But, Francis continued, “He doesn’t tell us ‘Ask and you’ll get whatever you ask for.’ He instructs us to seek but he doesn’t tell us exactly what we’ll find. He tells us to knock but he doesn’t say what will be waiting for us on the other side of the opened door. But he promises us that our prayers will be heard and God will respond.”
So, while we don’t know how our prayers will be answered, we do know they will be heard. Our faith tells us that God is really listening to us. And this might be the year to reframe the season of Lent, from one of “giving up something” to one of asking God what gift he wants to give us this Lent.
Instead of a focus on what I am doing for Lent, we can open our hearts to God and listen to what gift, what healing God offers us this Lent. Instead of giving up chocolate, maybe this Lent I can pray every morning for just a few minutes to be softer and kinder to my husband. I am, usually, but sometimes I hear a sharpness in my voice that I never want to have when I talk with him. My desire is to pray this Lent to take that edge out of my voice and to remember how much I have loved him over our many years of marriage.
I can knock on the door, I can seek and ask for the help to love more generously. If I can pray with that every day in Lent and make that my Lent commitment, that will deepen my experience of Lent and my own relationship with Jesus.
Loving God, I want to do everything myself, but like Esther, I realize I have no help but you. Please give me the strength and courage to be more loving and open in all of my relationships this Lent. Give me a listening heart to hear you speak to me when I knock.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
