13 And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.
In the past few weeks alone, I have prayed for many people who were going through surgery, were in the hospital in intensive care, and were hoping that the diagnosis wasn’t something serious. I have also attended four funerals for some of those very people. We would all like the answer to our prayers to be the same and as immediate as Jesus’ response to the leper in today’s gospel passage, but it doesn’t always happen. On the other hand, a few years ago, one of my cousins had a cancer that could be only partially removed and the doctor’s believed it would continue to grow. We all prayed for him and at his follow-up appointment, there was no trace of cancer in his system and he lived for several years before dying from a heart attack.
Why one and not the others? We will not know the answer to these questions in this world. Jesus tells us that prayer is important and that persistence in prayer is important. He tells us that our prayers are answered. The problem is we don’t know the mind of God! We don’t know when the way we want our prayers to be answered is not in God’s plan. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done.” Unfortunately, we don’t like it when our will and God’s will aren’t the same.
Many years ago, in a theology class, the teacher joked that we believe that God made us in his image, and we have been trying to return the favor ever since. Although this was said in jest, there is a ring of truth in it. We want God to love those we love, hate those we hate, help those we want to be helped and destroy our enemies.
If you love sports, you probably pray for your team to win and can get mad at God if they lose. However, do we ever think that the other team has just as many people praying for them to win?
Jesus willed that the leper be cleansed in order to show the power of God. He wills the best for us and for those we love as well. He wants us to pray for God’s will to be done, and he will give us the graces we need to accept his will regardless of the answer.
Lord, may we continue to pray for your help and be willing to accept your answer. Amen
