My Lord, you alone are God

Esther 4:17, Mt. 7:7-12. Today's first reading presents us with the prayer of Queen Esther as she seeks God’s wisdom and help. Esther prays that God will give her the correct words to speak to the king in order to save the Jews from annihilation by the king’s royal officers, who are very strongly anti-Semitic. Esther prayed: “My Lord, you alone are God. Help me, for I have no help but you.” Due to her earnest prayer, God intervened to save her people from mortal danger. Times of crisis should lead us to more earnest prayer. Trivial ambition and our safety can be forgotten, for the sake of the greater good. Esther first prayed for God to show her how to win the heart of her husband and save her people from destruction. Esther was a secret Jewess, married to the pagan king Ahasuerus; and when her people were threatened with destruction, she took the risk of going to her husband to plead on their behalf.

Esther knew that this could cost her life, yet she thinks that to stay in her comfortable ivory tower while her people were killed would burden her with guilt all her days. Her uncle Mordecai persuaded her to be courageous and beg the king to spare her Jewish people. Prayer in this spirit is powerful, because we are in touch with the best part of ourselves and with the loving Creator who called us into life and who holds our future in His hands. In today's Gospel, Jesus affirms the theme of God’s willingness to answer those who seek Him with faith and trust: “Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you.” Thus, these words could be translated as: “Ask and keep on asking...Seek and keep on seeking...Knock and keep on knocking.” We have to be in a continuous relationship with God, recalling our need for God’s assistance. Jesus enjoins us to trust God unconditionally and hand over our lives into His care. Jesus continues by giving the analogy of parents’ concerns for their children, giving them what they need and not wanting to cause them harm. If human parents can show such love for their children, how much more will God, the unconditionally loving Parent, show concern for us, His children: “Which of you would hand their child a stone if the child asks for bread?” By this, we show the need to be in relationship with God our loving Father.

May the Lord grant us the grace to trust God at all times and to cultivate our filial relationship with Him through prayer and doing His will! Amen!! Good morning and have a great day!!!