This morning’s Gospel reading is Luke 11:1–13:

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”

And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

Why do we feel our prayers go unanswered, or even unheard? After all, people of faith pray for a lot of things, many of which never come to pass. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of prayer life, but one that really forces us to rely on what matters most: faith.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises that the Lord will grant His children what they truly want, and uses an interesting set of metaphors to explain this. A father would hardly hand his son or daughter a snake rather than a fish, or a scorpion in place of a requested egg. This comment from Jesus appears light-hearted, a form of absurdism that intends to provoke laughter and understanding.

But what if that’s not what happens when we pray in real life? What if we’re asking for scorpions and snakes without understanding what they are? Little children, after all, have very little comprehension of the dangers of scorpions and snakes; a lot of kids just know that they look cool and have a curiosity about them.

If your child came up to you and said, “Daddy and mommy, please please please get me scorpion,” would you go out and find the first scorpion you find and drop it into their hands? Or would you say no and explain how dangerous they are, and perhaps ask them to trust your judgment on it if they still insisted?

If it’s the latter, it demonstrates your love for your children expressed in the deep desire to protect and nurture them properly. (If it’s the former, well … maybe check in with your spouse when it comes to Christmas lists.)

To paraphrase Jesus, if we as flawed and limited parents can make those judgment calls, imagine how much more perfectly our Father can make them. When we pray for things that will damage us or turn us away from salvation, even if we don’t realize it, then the Lord will not “answer” those prayers in the way we expect. And that would be true even if we keep knocking on the door, asking from morning to night, and so on. God loves us too much to see us get fatally stung or bitten by the desires of our hearts.

So then, the items and desires for which we pray matters when it comes to answering prayer. Jesus teaches here that persistence in prayer matters, but why? It’s not because we’re going to convince God to change His mind. On the 437th time we ask for a scorpion, the Lord will not heave up His shoulders and say, “Well, you’ve finally hit the magic number! Here’s your deadly gift!”

What then does persistence in prayer accomplish? It is not for the Lord’s sake, and certainly not to annoy Him into compliance with our wills, like petulant children attempt with frazzled parents. Persistence in prayer is for our benefit, not the Lord’s, because it compels us into a real conversation with Him.

That petulance may also be the reason why we grow frustrated in prayer before we achieve this. It’s not as if God pops up in a Zoom screen and says, “Nope!” when we’re asking for scorpions and snakes. When we pray for those desires that separate us from Him, especially those requests that would tend to amplify our predilection to consider ourselves the gods of our own lives, the silence doesn’t mean God isn’t answering. It means we’re not really listening for an answer. And why would we, when we’re indulging ourselves in the illusion that we are the masters of the universe? Until we recognize our true relationship with the Lord and each other, we will not hear any answer to our prayers, let alone feel the comforting love of the Lord that Christ so wants to share with each and every one of us.

Persistence in prayer opens up that doorway for us. That real conversation opens us to formation in His will rather than our own. It changes us as we adapt to the reality of His love and authority. As we engage in that prayer conversation with the Lord, we become more focused on what really matters. Rather than pray for material issues that don’t relate to our daily bread, so to speak, we pray for those gifts from the Lord that really will matter — wisdom, caritas love for our neighbors, strength of will to resist temptation, daily sustenance and health, and above all faith that the Lord will hear us as we conform more to His will than our own.

We cannot achieve that kind of relationship with the Lord without an active and robust prayer life. And once we have that kind of conversion, we learn how to distinguish the snake from the fish, the scorpion from the egg, and the obsession with the material from the health of our spiritual lives. Even more, we become more adept at serving as instruments of the Lord to those around us, such as the traveler in Jesus’ parable who needs sustenance in the dark of night, just as we all have been that traveler through dark nights of our own souls.

The truly valuable and saving gifts will then flow from the Lord, but it’s not the gifts that matter most. The fish and the egg are good gifts from a loving Father, but it is the relationship that matters the most. The more we knock, the more we ask, the deeper the conversation and the relationship becomes. So keep knocking, keep asking, but just remember that the real gift we need the most is salvation and eternal life with God. When we focus our prayers on that journey, we will be well on our way to understanding — and to having true faith in God’s wisdom, judgment, and love.

The front page image is a detail from “Ask and Ye Shall Receive,” an etching by Jan Luyken (1649-1712) published in the Bowyer Bible, now at the Bolton Museum in Lancashire, UK. Via Wikimedia Commons.

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.