Reflection for the 17th Ordinary Sunday 2025

“how much more will the Father in heaven
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

In our first reading we hear of Abraham’s negotiation with God over the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

We might think that these evil cities with their many sins, their outright lack of any kindness or compassion, deserved to be destroyed. Why would anyone want them to survive? Abraham isn’t ignorant or clueless. He knows what is going on. Yet, Abraham seeks to give the possibility of some good and just persons in those cities the benefit of the doubt. He encounters God with those possibilities and stands in the gap to give them a chance. So, he calls out those possibilities even to the smallest of possibilities: “What if there are at least ten there?” God replies, “For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it.” In other words, God listens to the pleading of His people. 

Jesus as God’s Son understands the relationship between people in need and God. When Jesus’ disciples ask Him to teach them to pray, He offers the perfect prayer, the Our Father.

In that prayer we first acknowledge Who God is and give Him fitting praise. We seek His will and offer our wills so that they may be conformed to His. Then we lay out our needs, our need for daily bread, a request for forgiveness, to be saved from every evil temptation, and a request to delivered from those evils.

The Church in Her wisdom helps us to understand this prayer in a deeper way. In the year 604 it added a short prayer following the Our Father which is technically called the Embolism. This is because the last petitions of the Our Father might be confusing: Lead us not into temptation and Deliver us from evil.

In the embolism we hear:

Deliver us Lord, from every evil,
and grant us peace in our day.
In Your mercy keep us free from sin
and protect us from all anxiety

That is so easy to connect with, to be delivered from evil, to live in peace, be protected from sin, and from every type of anxiety. This is what God knows we need and what we ask for so He created the Our Father so we might ask for them.

Jesus finally lays out a parable concerning asking, advising us to be persistent. He sets forth analogies concerning good gifts from those who love us.

God loves us greatly, beyond all measure, and holds gifts for us. He meets our needs, protects us – most particularly from anxieties – and as Jesus concludes He lets us know the best gift, the eternal gift of the Holy Spirit is ours for the asking. We receive His phenomenal gifts of wisdom, understanding counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.

Treasure God’s gifts and never be afraid to ask, to be persistent, and never be afraid to believe that God will deliver on His promises.

Reflection for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2017

Wait! I need
to ask.

“Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.”

We look to continue our process of growth and becoming in our Christian journey; to become better in our walk with Jesus and each other.

In our Old testament scripture, we encounter Solomon, the young successor to his father, David, who had just died. Solomon, age twelve, took David’s throne. Before his passing, David acknowledged Solomon’s intelligence and wisdom saying: “You are wise; you will know what to do to.”

It is longstanding worldly human practice to go with what people say about us. We trust their wisdom and understanding, especially if they are people of power in our lives. Our bosses compliment us, we eat it up. A talented person says we are talented or special, we trust their judgment. A professor notes our intelligence, we trust that.

It would have been easy for Solomon to just trust what his father had said. After all, these were words from David’s death bed – words most people value in a very special way. He was wise and intelligent according to his father, the King. Thus, when God spoke to Solomon, Solomon could have asked for anything else. Why ask for wisdom and intelligence if he already had it? Instead, he humbled himself before God. He accounted himself as having nothing and asked God for the very things his father said he already had.

It should be this way for us as we grow and develop in our Christian walk. We should be the children of our heavenly Father asking Him for all gifts. This requires vast humility. Having that kind of humility is why Solomon was blessed and praised by God! Having that kind of humility gave Solomon not only the gift of wisdom and intelligence, but also long life, riches, success, and the life of his enemies.

St. Paul expands on this saying: We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

If we love God, if we walk humbly with Him, if we trust judgment to Him and stay aligned with His will, we will be vastly rewarded. The littlest ones in our lives get this in a special way. If they are asked to do something or go somewhere, if they are asked to make a judgment, their instinct is to stop, say wait, and say: ‘I need to ask.’

This is what God is seeking from us. I think I am wise – Wait, I need to ask. I think I know what I should do – Wait, I need to ask. My judgments are correct and righteous – Wait, I need to ask.

The treasure hid in a field is God’s gifts for us. It is the kingdom and all it holds for us. There is a great treasure for us if we only ask.