1st Week of Season of Lent (Thus) 5th March 2020

Theme: Let us intensify our prayer in the season of Lent.

Scriptures: Es. 14:1, 3-5, 12-14; Ps. 137:1-3, 7-8; Mt. 7:7-12

We hear about the story of Esther pleading before the Lord in the first reading. Esther was a Jewish girl exiled in Persia. When the king Ahasuerus rejected his wife Vashti for her disobedience, he chose Esther as his new queen. During this time, the king’s chief adviser Haman planned to kill all the Jews and specially Mordecai, the cousin and guardian of Esther. Esther realised his plans of killing all the Jews. With the help of Mordecai, her cousin, she pleaded before the king to spare the Jews.

Esther prayed to God in her anguish. She was afraid to ask the king favours to spare her and the people of Israel in the foreign land. She gathered lots of courage from her cousin to address to the king but it was her prayer that helped her to win favours in the sight of King. She recognise in her prayer that God was her true king. God kept His promises from the days of her ancestors. She totally relied on God’s providence what to speak to the king for she knew it was God who had power to change king’s heart.

In the Gospel, Jesus had previously taught His disciples to pray (Mt. 6:5-15). Yet again Jesus comes back to the topic of prayer. It shows how important the topic of prayer was for Jesus. He not only spoke about it to his disciples but also showed it from his life how to pray every day. In today’s Gospel, Jesus used three progressive verbs to describe how must pray: asking, seeking and knocking. These are different aspects of prayers and different aspects of rewards. Prayer is like asking God for help and the reward is in receiving. Prayer is like seeking God in our needs and difficulties and the reward is in finding. Prayer is like knocking until the door is opened. The reward is in opening the door. While we all keep theses aspects of praying, we need to know that our God is generous, caring and loving. We can imagine about our parents who care for us so much, how much more God would be.

Esther truly believed in God’s generous, caring and loving nature therefore in anguish she turned to God. She was all alone yet God granted her heart’s desire. God answered her prayers. We are in the season of Lent, we are told to pray with the aspects of asking, searching and knocking. We are called to intensify our prayers. Our preparation in the season of lent can be effective with the help of prayer. Let us therefore, concentrate on our prayer life.