by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace
Now you may remember, because I mentioned it a number of times, our Gospel lessons over the last 12-14 weeks, through the summer and into the fall now, have been Luke’s account of the last journey of Jesus with his disciples to Jerusalem, the journeys that he knew would end in his being shamed and being tortured and finally executed.
But along the way of this journey, Jesus has been teaching various ways, various times — healing, reaching out to the poor, giving comfort to the afflicted, trying to bring justice to people — and today once more, Jesus provides us with some teaching.
As last Sunday, today’s teaching is about prayer. Perhaps it’s good to recall that near the very beginning of this journey, when the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” They had seen him go apart by himself and become deeply engaged in communion with God, and they knew they needed to achieve that same ability — to go into the depths of their heart and to be in communion with God…