Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Be Careful What You Ask For

Jesus talks about praying for whatever we need with faith and confidence, but he ends by asking, “How much more will the Father . . . give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 1:13). Is he saying there are limits to what we can ask for?
 “Be careful what you ask for,” the saying warns. Just because we want something doesn’t mean it will be good for us. Remember the Indiana Jones movies? The artifact that the bad guys were seeking usually turned out to be lethal. But if we have enough faith to pray for something, we probably would not pray for anything evil. So what is Jesus really saying?  He is giving us two lessons about prayer.
First, he assures us that God does hear our prayers and answers them. Many people take “ask and you shall receive” so literally that they expect God to do their bidding no matter what they want. Prayers, however, are not a magical ritual that somehow forces God to do our will. God is free to do what is best for us, free to answer some prayers with a no when what we seek is against God’s will. So maybe our first prayer should be to ask God to show us what we really need.
That leads us to the second lesson: prayer changes us, not God. If we truly pray as Jesus prayed, we would ask for what we need, adding, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). If we pray humbly and are open to what God wills for us, we will begin to see that what we really need most is actually God.  It’s not easy to change our minds about what we want or need. To change our desires from selfish to holy takes a lot of power, the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was raised from the dead by that power and we will be, too (Romans 8:11). Mary conceived by the power of the Spirit (Matthew 1:18). The bread and wine of the Eucharist become the Body and Blood of Christ by the Spirit’s power. So when Jesus promises that the Father will give the Spirit to us for the asking, the Spirit is both the source of and the answer to our prayers. Let us ask the Spirit to empower us to desire and pray for what we really need.
Tom Schmidt

Short Version

Jesus talks about praying for whatever we need with faith and confidence, but he ends by asking, “How much more with the Father . . . give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 1:13). Is he saying there are limits to what we can ask for?
 “Be careful what you ask for,” the saying warns. Just because we want something doesn’t mean it will be good for us.  But if we have enough faith to pray for something, we probably would not pray for anything evil. So what is Jesus really saying? He is giving us two lessons about prayer.
First, he assures us that God does hear our prayers and answers them. Many people take “ask and you shall receive” so literally that they expect God to do their bidding no matter what they want. But God is free to do what is best for us, free to answer some prayers with a no when what we seek is against God’s will. So maybe our first prayer should be to ask God to show us what we really need.
That leads us to the second lesson: prayer changes us, not God. If we truly pray as Jesus prayed, we would say, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). It’s not easy to change our minds about what we want or need. To change our desires from selfish to holy takes a lot of power, the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was raised from the dead by that power and we will be, too (Romans 8:11). So when Jesus promises that the Father will give the Spirit to us for asking, the Spirit is both the source of and the answer to our prayers. Let us ask the Spirit to empower us to desire and pray for what we really need.
Tom Schmidt