5th Sunday after Easter 2021 (EF) - "Ask in my name"

 

Like last week, our gospel places us at the table of the Last Supper---listening to the words spoken by Our Lord to his closest friends on the night before he died. Like last Sunday, we hear the Lord speaking of his upcoming Ascension. “I came forth from the Father and into the world…and I am leaving the world to go to the Father”, a fitting Gospel for us to reflect upon, now just four days until the feast of the Lord’s Ascension.

Beginning tomorrow, the Church will observe three days of rogation, days of penance and pleading God’s mercy upon the world. We will have a high mass with the rogation litanies tomorrow evening at 5:30pm. 

The word Rogation comes from the latin verb rogare which means to petition, to beseech. On the rogation days, we petition the Lord to grant mercy and protection. 

Today’s Gospel is a sort of prelude for the rogation days to come, for the Lord addresses this very idea of making prayerful petition to the Father. We even find different forms of that word—rogare—a few times.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you.” 

First the Lord teaches us that it is good and right and holy for us to make petition to the Father. Making frequent and prayerful petition to the Father is an important dimension of the Christian life. 

Daily we should pray for those who are close to us—spouses, children, parents, and siblings. Daily we should pray for church leaders, the pope, the bishops, our pastors. Daily, we should pray for government leaders—that they may govern in accordance with the laws of God and labor for the protection of the vulnerable, especially the unborn. We pray for the sick and suffering, the infirmed, the mentally ill, the addicts, the imprisoned. And we pray for ourselves, for all the graces we need to grow in holiness, remain faithful in times of temptation, to bear the spiritual fruits the Holy Spirit wants to see flourish in us.

Today especially, we pray for our mothers, both living and deceased. Grateful for these women and for the sacrifices they made for us, we petition God to bless all expectant mothers and new mothers, mothers who are tired, stressed, depressed, or grieving, mothers who are underappreciated or who face physical, mental, or emotional disabilities in themselves or their children. 

So, the Lord teaches us to make petition to God. But even many of the pre-Christian religions do that, what sets our Christian petition apart is that we are to make petition, in his name, in the name of Jesus, the name above every other name, the name which means “God saves”. We fulfill this directive by ending our prayers, “per dominum nostrum Iesum Christum filium tuum”. Literally mentioning his holy name at the end of our prayers. 

But not only that. To pray “in his name” is to trust that by Christ’s infinite merits, all good things, all necessary things, all that is right and just has been obtained. To pray in his name is to pray in the same filial love and trust with which the Lord prayed so many times in his earthly life, particularly from the cross. 

To pray in his name, we remember that his name, Jesus, means “God saves”. His very name guides us to pray for the eternal salvation of our fellow man—to pray for those whose salvation is in jeopardy, those on their death beds in danger of hell, those who are unrepentant, those who are lukewarm or cold toward God.

To make petition in his name is also to acknowledge that we are but unprofitable servants. On one hand, we have no sufficiency in ourselves;  our sufficiency comes from the Crucified. To pray in his name shows humility—a deep sense of our nothingness.

And yet, the Lord also reveals something quite amazing in the Gospel today. Yes, he goes to the Father to intercede for us. But he also reveals this amazing paradox. On one hand, the ascended Lord, at the right hand of his Father, is forever fixed in that act of love in which he died: making perpetually intercession for his own with the Father.

On the other hand, he says, “I say not to you that I will ask the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came out from God.”

Christians through the adoption we receive through baptism, have new access to the Father through the Son not previously enjoyed by humanity. We become “sons in the son”. We are so incorporated into that Filial relationship, that when our prayers are rooted in faith, hope, and love, they ARE the very prayer of Jesus. Simply profound!

As we enter into the days of holy rogation, we recall with profound gratitude and humility that which has made rogation possible and effective, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.