Saturday May 27
These words of Jesus uttered after the Last Supper refer to prayer. There is an expression that Christ repeated three times: inviting to invoke God in my name. For a Semite, a name signifies the whole person. We must trust in the power of the Son, who is also our brother, and who after sharing our human condition has reached the threshold of the infinite and heavenly Father. So all liturgical prayers conclude with "through Christ our Lord." The Father's love for us is manifested through the Son if we are faithful. Alternative “Ask and receive, that your joy may be full.” He did not say, “Work and earn,” because while that may bring satisfaction, it is not really the recipe for joy. Joy has to come from beyond, but satisfaction we can cook up ourselves. C.S. Lewis titled a book Surprised by Joy. Joy comes as a surprise, not as something due. There is all the difference in the world between giving/receiving and buying/selling. We sometimes catch ourselves trying to buy our way with God: promising prayers and good works and pilgrimages, on condition that God will consent to give us something we want. Meister Eckhart called this “trading with God—merchandising.” We are not changed by it: we are conducting business rather than relating to God in a personal way. In fact there is really only one person involved: oneself. Giving and receiving, on the other hand, involve us in a personal way: there is a giver and a receiver; and things like generosity and gratitude have a place. At the end of it we are changed, made more human somehow. And the more human we are, the greater our capacity for joy. Moreover we are not promised a small portion, “ask and receive, that your joy may be full.”