16 February 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
““Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Matthew 7:7
February in Kerala is the beginning of the hot months. The paddy fields of the Kole lands and Kuttanad lie dry after the harvest, the wells begin to fall, and by the afternoon the whole land seems to wait for a rain that will not come until the summer showers. Paul gives words to that waiting. “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” Creation was subjected to futility, “in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Then comes one of the boldest images in Scripture: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.” The groan of the world is not the cry of a dying thing, but of a mother about to give birth.
We groan too. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” The Great Fast teaches us to feel this groan honestly. When we are hungry in the late afternoon, when a habit we have given up pulls at us, when prayer feels dry, we are standing with the whole creation in its labour. Paul does not call this despair; he calls it hope. “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Many parishes hold their Lenten retreat, the dhyanam, in these weeks, and families come back from those days of listening with the same discovery: the waiting itself is a school of hope.
Into this waiting Jesus speaks his invitation to pray. “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” He is not describing a vending machine, but a father. “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” The Father does not always give what we name, but he never gives a stone for bread. And the same passage ends with the golden rule: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” The one who knocks at God's door learns to open his own door to others.
Theme: “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”
The groaning of creation, the patience of hope, and the Father who gives good things to those who ask.
“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” Isaiah 65:17
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;” Romans 8:22
Apply: Do one concrete thing this week to care for God's creation, especially water.
“but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
“For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Romans 8:24–25
Apply: When the fast feels hard, offer that moment to God as an act of hope.
“When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart,” Jeremiah 29:13
““Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Matthew 7:7
Apply: Choose one intention and keep asking for it every day until Easter.
Creation groans and we groan with it, but it is the groan of a birth.
Ask the Father with confidence, and do to others as you would have them do to you.
Take-home resolution: Pray every day until Easter for one intention, and do one unasked kindness each day this week.
Dear friends, Saint Paul says that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now (Romans 8:22). In these hot February days, when the fields are dry and the wells begin to fall, we can almost hear that groan. But it is the groan of a mother about to give birth, not of something dying.
We too groan as we wait. In this fast we feel hunger, we feel the pull of the habits we have given up. Paul says: in hope we were saved; and if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:24–25).
Jesus teaches us how to wait: by prayer. Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you (Matthew 7:7). Our Father in heaven will never give us a stone when we ask for bread. He may not give what we name, but he always gives what is good.
And he ends with the golden rule: do to others as you would have them do to you (Matthew 7:12). Let us knock at God's door this week, and open our own door to others. Amen.
Children, Jesus says: ask, and you will receive. God is a good Father who loves to give good things. What will you ask him for today? And what good thing will you give to someone else?
Lord Jesus Christ, with the whole creation we groan and wait for the glory to come. Teach us to hope for what we do not see and to wait for it with patience. You told us to ask, to search and to knock; give us the confidence of children before the Father who never gives a stone for bread, and make us generous to others as we want them to be to us. Glory to you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever. Amen.
Both readings teach us to ask and to wait. Paul hears the whole of creation groaning like a woman in labour, and says that we groan with it while we wait in hope. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his disciples to keep asking, seeking and knocking, because the one they ask is their Father. The fast is a season for this kind of longing. The key words are hope, groaning and ask.
Setting.
Paul wrote to the Christians of Rome around AD 57, probably from Corinth, to a church he had not yet visited. Romans 8 is the high point of the letter's first part. It describes life in the Spirit: we are children of God and heirs with Christ, “if, in fact, we suffer with him” (8:17). Our passage takes up that suffering, and sets it against what is to come.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” (8:18)
The man who writes this has known beatings and shipwreck (2 Corinthians 11:23–27). He is not speaking lightly of pain. He is weighing it against something.
“for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope” (8:20)
Most commentators take “the one who subjected it” to be God, after the sin of Adam, when the ground was cursed (Genesis 3:17). The last two words matter most: even this subjection was “in hope”.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;” (8:22)
Labour pains hurt, but they are the pains of a birth. Paul does not say that the world is dying. He says that something is about to be born.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism quotes this passage to show the common destiny of the material world and of humanity (CCC 1046–1047). St Irenaeus uses it to teach that creation itself will be renewed and not thrown away (in substance; Against Heresies V, 32). Pope Francis recalls v. 22 at the opening of Laudato Si' (no. 2), saying that the earth itself is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor.
Setting.
We are near the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). Jesus has already taught his disciples the Our Father (6:9–13) and has told them not to worry, because the Father knows their needs (6:25–33). Now he returns to prayer. Luke keeps a parallel in his own teaching on prayer (Luke 11:9–13), and there the Father's good gift is the Holy Spirit.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
““Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (7:7)
“It will be given” and “will be opened” do not name who acts, a way of speech that points reverently to God.
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (7:11)
Jesus says “who are evil” almost in passing, and he goes on to speak of our love for our children. Even wounded human love is a small window on the Father.
““In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (7:12)
The Book of Tobit has it in a negative form (4:15), and Rabbi Hillel is remembered for a similar saying. Jesus gives it as a positive command: do not wait, begin.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Jesus teaches a filial boldness in prayer (CCC 2610), and it deals honestly with the complaint that our prayer is not heard (CCC 2735–2737). It also names this verse the Golden Rule, one of the rules that always apply in moral decisions (CCC 1789). St Augustine, writing to the widow Proba, says that God does not need to be told our wishes, but that in prayer our desire is stretched so we can receive what he wants to give (in substance).
I have asked and knocked for years. Why has the door not opened?
The verse does not promise that we will get exactly what we name. It promises that the Father gives good things and never a stone. Paul can say a few lines later that “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8:26). Keep praying, and if it helps, speak with a priest about what you are asking (CCC 2735–2737).