Lent Week 1: Thursday
PRAY LIKE ESTHER
The book of Esther is present in both Catholic and Protestant versions of the Bible, with the latter presenting a shorter narrative. Queen Esther’s iconic prayer is offered to us as a model of desperate but totally surrendering prayer. She is about to risk her very life in her approach to her unpredictable husband, the king, and she abandons her fate wholly into God’s mercy.
Once I had a custom-made trash bin that was both elegant, sturdy and costly to prevent its destruction at the hands of the neighborhood garbage collectors who throw things recklessly. One day, I woke up to find the trash bin gone, stolen, perhaps it was attractive and could easily be sold. I missed the thing for several days until it dawned on me to petition St. Anthony of Padua, patron of lost things, to help me pray for its return. Would you believe that just days after, I found the trash bin restored in front of my gate one quiet morning? Who said prayer could not convert a thief’s heart?
But as that prayer for a lost item was granted, I did continue to suffer from medical conditions: pains here and there and increasing prescriptions. A friend asked me why I don’t try my prayer for this intention. I said I did and still do, but it seems the Lord’s response is bafflingly different. However, instead of giving up, I continue to pray for healing to come, and in the meantime, for perseverance in offering up my sufferings for my purification and for the good of others.
In the gospel, the Lord Jesus encourages a steadfast, trusting, and persistent prayer, with the promise of its positive outcome. Ask, you will receive; seek, you will find; knock, a door will open.
But he did not say you will receive what you desire or that you will find what you intend, or that the open door will be for you. At the end of the gospel, the Lord says the Father will give only “good things” to those who ask him. What is ultimately good, which too often evade our understanding, only God truly knows. He knows not only what we need but what will make us better witnesses of his love.n And that is the good that he will give because it will be beneficial to us and to others here and now, and even in eternity. Accepting the good God offers requires faith in divine wisdom and plan for our lives.
Answered prayer, miraculous response, or an unexpected twist – whatever happens to the petition of our hearts before God – must teach us to believe in the God who answers prayers and who gives to us the good as he sees it. One must trust; one must learn to be patient; one must be grateful in following his will. Let us exercise these attitudes in our Lenten prayers.
