‘Ask and you will receive’
Gn 18:20-32; Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 6-7, 7-8; Col 2:12-14; Lk 11:1-13
“Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find.” Do you remember the first time you were sadly disappointed by this promise? Maybe you felt that God had let you down or you wondered if he were listening? Or perhaps you felt that you were not as worthy to have your prayers answered as the child in the Gospel who asks his father for a fish or an egg?
Maybe that was never you, but I know that I, and a good many people I have known, have struggled with this passage at times (and sometimes still do). I have often asked in my prayers for outcomes that were never realized: illnesses that were never healed, jobs that were never restored, marriages that were never preserved … and the list goes on.
What could Jesus have possibly meant by telling me to ask for what I want, when it seems that what he promised is so rarely achieved?
Over the centuries, there has been no shortage of attempts to answer this question, usually along the lines of noting that God knows what we need better than we do ourselves. Regardless of what we ask for, God will supply us with what is most important.
What might feel to us like a disappointment is actually a manifestation of God’s infinite love for us. If that is not self-evident, then we have to accept that God’s ways are sometimes a mystery beyond our reckoning.
While that may all be true, there is an important detail in this Gospel passage that could easily be overlooked and yet offers profound insight into Jesus’ message.
At the end of his instructions to the disciples that they should ask for what they want and expect to receive it, Jesus underscores God’s incredible generosity by noting “how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”
Really, the Holy Spirit? Who said anything about asking for the Holy Spirit? I thought we were talking about asking for our “daily bread” or for other needs (“whatever you ask him”) and the like. How did we come to the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit holds a special place in Luke’s writings. After the resurrection, Jesus tells the disciples that they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5), and it is Luke who records the amazing transformation that comes upon the disciples after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13).
Paul extended our understanding of the powerful transformation affected by the Spirit. In today’s second reading, he assures the Colossians that to be baptized in Christ means to be buried with him in death, so as to rise with him in new life. Elsewhere he writes that “whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old things have passed away” (2 Cor 5:17).
Thus, to receive the Holy Spirit allows one to share in Jesus’ own paschal mystery: his life, death and resurrection. Just as Jesus’ own suffering and death did not ultimately limit or define him, so we too are not defined by our limitations.
The self-sacrificial love of Jesus, conveyed by the Holy Spirit, can be a powerful source of consolation and grounding, even in the midst of chaotic turmoil that would otherwise leave us feeling isolated or hopeless.
This is only possible in the post-Pentecost world, after the Holy Spirit has been sent upon us. Thus, when Jesus tells the disciples to ask for the Holy Spirit, we shouldn’t expect that they would fully know what he meant. Perhaps he was giving them a glimpse of what was to come, for them to remember after the Pentecost event.
The experience of seemingly unanswered prayers can produce feelings of hopelessness or despair. When we don’t get our way, it’s easy to feel confined or trapped.
It’s not wrong to ask for what we desire, but we should always follow that up with a prayer for the Holy Spirit to envelope us. We are called to enter into mini-resurrections on a daily basis that allow us to transcend despair and be receptive of God’s love, both when our prayers appear to be answered and when they do not.