Eventide & Altar

Picture a neighbor woken at midnight because a friend has arrived hungry and there is nothing in the house to feed him. Jesus does not call the persistence rude. He calls it exactly right, and tells the crowd to ask, seek, and knock with the same confidence, trusting that the Father gives good things to those who ask him, the way an imperfect earthly father still knows how to give good gifts to his own children.

There is a particular kind of pride that can settle into a long life, the pride of having managed everything alone for so many years that asking for help starts to feel like an admission of decline. That pride is understandable. It is also worth setting down, at least tonight, because the parable is not really about self-sufficiency. It is about a God who wants to be asked, repeatedly, by people who have every right to expect an answer.

Zechariah's canticle in today's psalm blesses the Lord for raising up deliverance, so that his people could worship without fear, free of their enemies, all the days of their life. All the days, not just the strong ones. Whatever has become harder to manage alone as the years have added up, the body, the finances, the simple logistics of living, this reading gives permission to ask rather than to quietly white-knuckle it.

Paul's first reading calls the Galatians foolish for forgetting that what they received, they received by asking and believing, not by earning it through sheer effort. That applies as much to a man in his eighties as to anyone younger. Nobody graduates out of needing to ask.

The Luminous Mysteries tonight, since it is Thursday. Offer the fifth mystery, the Institution of the Eucharist, for everyone who has stopped asking for help out of pride or fear of being a burden.

• For the grace to keep asking for what we need, without shame, no matter our age, we pray to the Lord.
• For everyone who is afraid of becoming a burden to those who love them, we pray to the Lord.
• For all who have died, that they rest in the deliverance Zechariah sang of, we pray to the Lord.

Ask one specific person for one specific piece of help today, something you have been managing alone. Let them actually help, without minimizing it afterward.