Readings: Malachi 3.13-20b; Psalm 1; Luke 11.5-13
We have been reading the works of the 'minor' prophets at Mass these past couple of weeks. Today it is the turn of Malachi, the text which concludes the Christian Old Testament.
The 'Day of the Lord' will be a day of fire, he tells us, a fire issuing from the Sun of Justice. That fire will be experienced by each one according to how they have disposed themselves. For those who have lived well, it will bring healing. For those who have not live well, it will bring dissolution. To live well means fearing the Lord and trusting in his name. Not to live well means, the opposite, fearing neither God nor man, disdaining justice and denying truth.
Jesus continues to call the disciples to prayer, arguing that just as people will respond to the persistent knocking of a friend, how much more and how much more readily will the heavenly Father respond to those who approach him. Not only that, but the Fahter has a particular gift in mind for them. It seems that whatever we ask, the Father will give us the Holy Spirit in response to our asking. To ask at all is already a sign of the Spirit working in us. We do not know how to pray as we ought, St Paul says, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.
This gift of the Spirit - God's love poured into our hearts - is also what makes it possible for us to fear and to trust God. It turns us towards God in hope and it turns God towards us, if we can put it like that. 'They shall be mine', God says through Malachi, 'children whom I love, my own special possession.'
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