A Homily for the Fifth Sunday after Easter

​+ “Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.”
 
These words of this morning’s Holy Gospel, which the Church contemplates in the liturgical texts of matins, Lauds and Vespers today, and which preface the Rogation processions of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week where we solemnly and incessantly ask for all manner of things from the Father, are sometimes quite difficult to interpret. For we have all had the experience of praying earnestly for an intention, of asking God for something, and of not receiving that for which we asked. How, then, are we to understand them?
 
In the first place we must reject the ‘schoolboy’ interpretation that we may ask Almighty God for a new car or to win the lottery etc., and then simply sit back and watch it arrive or happen as we hope. Our Lord is not offering us a form of manipulative, self-serving magic whereby our simple wishes shall become realities. He is not presenting us with an opportunity to have anything at all that we want regardless of the context or content of our wishes.
 
It is precisely here, considering the context and content of that for which we ask, that we begin to understand what in fact Our Lord is teaching. For the context is that He is teaching His disciples about the life of the Church in the future, after His Ascension and after the coming of God the Holy Spirit—events which they, themselves, had not yet experienced. In this context, then—in the context of what is necessary and good for the life of the Church—we need to leave our desire to win the lottery behind (pleasant and useful as that could be, especially in restoring and expanding ancient monastic buildings!) and look to what we should be asking of God the Father.
 
Indeed, in contemplating this passage, the Fathers of the Church are quite clear about what it does not mean. They underline that the asking is to be done in the name of Our Lord Himself, which is a rather significant detail. Accordingly, St Augustine teaches that “Whatsoever is asked contrary to the nature of salvation is not asked in the Saviour’s name,” and therefore will not be granted. St Basil is equally clear, asking rhetorically: “That which you desire to obtain, what is it but salvation in God?” Herein we have the content of what our prayer should contain: that which is conducive to our salvation. But this can itself add further difficulties, for often what is truly good for my salvation is not clear.
 
Naturally, we do not desire to suffer pain and serious illness, and we beg God to alleviate it and save us from it. But it may be that in such suffering and in offering up the corporeal distress they bring we have the opportunity to do penance for our sins and prepare to make a good death—and in so doing we shall find salvation.
 
It may be that we wish to ask God to ‘introduce’ us, as it were, to our future husband or wife so that we can begin a family, and that we are diligent in praying for the graces necessary to pursue the noble and worthy vocation of Christian marriage, when in fact our salvation lies in accepting the more selfless call: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mt 4: 19) And it may be that in any vocation, be that to the cloister, to the pulpit, to the family or in the world as a single man or woman, our demands are that God’s plans for us conform to our will. Yet, the fact is that our salvation lies in conforming ourselves to His will, nothing else!
 
For what then can we ask? Certainly, we can and should ask for the ability to conform our lives to God’s will. And in so doing, there is no better place to start—and to continue to pray and ask lifelong—than for an increase in virtue, in the ability to live from and to live out the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity and to practice ever more perfectly the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. (It is important to remember that all other virtues—including the ‘celebrity’ virtues of humility and obedience, so prominent and even at times exaggerated in aspects of spirituality and ecclesial life—are in fact subordinate to the theological and cardinal virtues.)
 
In asking for a growth in virtue, we are not being selfish: the virtues are the means by which we grow in our love of God and of our neighbour. They are the weapons with which we overcome sin and vice. They free us from our obsession with winning the lottery or having all manner of worldly goods or pleasures. They detach us from our preferences even, in respect of our own lives, and place us at the disposition of God’s Providential will.
 
As we approach His altar this morning, and as we process and sing the litanies and other intercessory prayers in the Rogation days at the beginning of this week, let us dare to ask God the Father for an increase in faith, hope and charity and for evermore prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. For if we do so with a pure heart and are willing truly to receive these gifts, He will grant our request. For the practice of the virtues is the truly unselfish means by which we serve Him in this life and shall reach our salvation in the life to come. +