Weekly Reflection 072102AD

Sunday, July 21, 2009AD

16^th Sunday in Greentime

More than Your Own Prayer:

The eighth chapter of St Paul’s Letter to the Romans is the highlight of his master letter. In the chapter, from which we hear several excerpts this summer, he speaks about his belief in a basic insight of Judaeo-Christianity, viz., God is always faithful. We change; our situations change; God does nor change; God is always faithful to God’s Promise, “I will be with you.”

Psalm 117 is the shortest psalm. However, it says it all, “Praise God, all you nations. Glorify God, all you people. Steadfast is God’s Love to us; the Fidelity of God endures forever.”

St Paul reminds us that creation groans as, under God’s Will, the universe is developing as an unborn child. Each of us also, redeemed in Christ, groans as we wait in expectation, as wait for the redemption of our bodies. However, the faith-filled tenet is the Judaeo-Christian bedrock, “God is always faithful.”

Through baptism, the Christian is baptized into Christ. We live our lives in Christ; Christ is living within us. Somehow, in a way that even inspired biblical language is incapable of expressing, the Spirit of Jesus Christ is always with us. Our life in the Spirit involves more than we sense.

The intimacy in Christ with life in the Holy Spirit affects even the way that we pray. Christians are “in-between”. We are still part of creation not yet fully redeemed. Hence, we still face the reality of death. However, our flesh shares already in God’s Victory, yet to come.

Remember how we are taught that our bodies are tabernacles (dwelling places of the Lord) and the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a reality for each of us if we meet the demands of God’s Holy Spirit in our daily lives.

St Paul tells us that because we are in an “in-between” situation, the Spirit needs to pick up for us where our prayers are deficit. As he tells us today, “we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groanings.

Language fails, but images speak. How frequently has each of us prayed for something that we expected in good faith was something that God would want for us. Sometimes, we get what we ask; other times, our prayer is answered, but not yet. Sometimes, our prayer is heard and answered in a different way and we realize, indeed, that God knew better. Finally, we sometimes experience a silence in which the prayer is unanswered. Teilhard de Chardin would speak of “a negative diminishment” which culminates in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of St Paul’s coined words is “we have been ‘crucified with Christ’”. Our unanswered prayer is an (unlooked for) opportunity to experience (whether we like it or not) the Cross of Christ, which is part of our Spirit-filled lives in Christ Jesus.

In our prayers, St Paul tells us that the Spirit groans with us. The Spirit prays for us in the way that is according to God’s Will. God will triumph in your life as in all creation. 072802 AD jfq