October 8, 2026 -- Thursday of the 27th even-numbered week
H O M I L Y
In the section of Luke’s Gospel that we have been reading in the weekday lectionary for the past few days, Luke describes Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and places events there that the other evangelists placed at other times in Jesus’ life. This section also contains stories that Luke alone recounts. This was the case with the parables of the Good Samaritan and of Martha and Mary. In the text we have just read (which forms a whole with the one we would have had yesterday had it not been for the feast of Mary, Queen of the Rosary), Luke records two of Jesus’ teachings on prayer that we also find in Matthew—namely, the Lord’s Prayer and the exhortation: “Ask, and you will receive… etc.” ” And between these two teachings, Luke inserts another teaching of Jesus, which he alone recounts: that of the persistent friend, which we have just read. Let us pause for a moment on this passage.
This passage is interesting, first of all, because it shows us a side of Jesus’ personality that doesn’t often appear in the Gospels. Here we see a somewhat cheerful Jesus, displaying a good sense of humor and gently teasing his listeners. Jesus usually uses parables as his preferred method of teaching. A parable is a made-up story, at the end of which each listener is led to identify with one character or another and to learn a lesson from it. Here, Jesus isn’t telling a parable. He speaks directly to his listeners and says, “Imagine that you have a friend who comes to bother you in the middle of the night.” ” Jesus is thus imagining a scene that would take place between friends—not between strangers, and certainly not between enemies. So “imagine,” says Jesus, “that you have a friend who has another friend visiting in the middle of the night and, having nothing at home to offer him, comes to wake you up in the middle of the night to borrow three loaves of bread.” What are you going to do? You’ll probably tell him, “This is no time to be bothering people. Leave me alone! The whole family is already in bed and asleep.” And then, of course, the other person will keep insisting—as friends do—and eventually you’ll give him what he’s asking for, not because he’s a friend, but simply to get rid of him. From here, we can see Jesus’ listeners nodding and smiling, acknowledging that this is exactly how things would play out.
And Luke then introduces another teaching from Jesus, absolutely of the same kind (which Matthew also records). “If one of you,” he says to them, “has a son who asks for a fish, would you by any chance give him a snake that will bite him? And if he asks for an egg, would you give him a scorpion that will sting him?” Of course not.
And the conclusion of these two questions from Jesus is straightforward: “If you, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven... ” Here, the text in Saint Luke differs from that in Matthew. According to Matthew, Jesus says: “How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him for them.” According to Luke, he says instead: “How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him for it.”
The purpose of prayer, then, is not to have God grant all our desires, much less all our whims. Rather, it is to enter into communion with God, so that we may be of one Spirit with Him and thus come to know what we must do and how we must act. As intelligent beings, we have a responsibility to manage ourselves and the environment in which we live. We must not ask God to do this for us. But we must ask Him for wisdom and understanding—His Spirit, the Holy Spirit—which will enable us to make the right decisions throughout our lives.
We will then ask, as we say in the Lord’s Prayer, that a kingdom of justice and love may come to this earth, and we will strive to do our small part to bring about that kingdom. We will concern ourselves with our daily bread (but not with amassing colossal fortunes) and we will work to ensure that this becomes a reality for every human being as well. We will strive to forgive, and we will avoid the temptation of triumphalism. Let us also note that all the requests in the Lord’s Prayer concerning our needs are phrased in the plural.
The “Our Father,” the prayer taught by Jesus, can thus be summarized in two points: the request that the Church’s mission to establish a kingdom of communion and justice on earth be effective, and the request that we, as Christians, become ever more worthy of that name, working to ensure that our world becomes ever more a world of brothers and sisters.
Armand Veilleux