Intercessory Prayer
Jul 4: Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
In the United States, today is Independence Day! However, I couldn’t figure out what readings we’re supposed to read on a national holiday, so I’m just going with the Thirteenth Tuesday readings.
Pray that God will forgive me. And speaking of praying for someone, that’s what today’s readings are all about!
Reading 1
Gn 19:15-29
As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, "On your way! Take with you your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of Sodom." When he hesitated, the men, by the LORD's mercy, seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them to safety outside the city. As soon as they had been brought outside, he was told: "Flee for your life! Don't look back or stop anywhere on the Plain. Get off to the hills at once, or you will be swept away."
"Oh, no, my lord!" Lot replied, "You have already thought enough of your servant to do me the great kindness of intervening to save my life. But I cannot flee to the hills to keep the disaster from overtaking me, and so I shall die. Look, this town ahead is near enough to escape to.
It's only a small place. Let me flee there–it's a small place, is it not?–that my life may be saved."
"Well, then," he replied, "I will also grant you the favor you now ask. I will not overthrow the town you speak of. Hurry, escape there! I cannot do anything until you arrive there." That is why the town is called Zoar.
The sun was just rising over the earth as Lot arrived in Zoar; at the same time the LORD rained down sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah from the LORD out of heaven. He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil. But Lot's wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood in the LORD's presence. As he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole region of the Plain, he saw dense smoke over the land rising like fumes from a furnace.
Thus it came to pass: when God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham by sending Lot away from the upheaval by which God overthrew the cities where Lot had been living.
As an older millennial, it’s impossible to read this passage without thinking of Matt Damon in Dogma.1
Anyway, the point of this readings, especially in light of today’s Gospel, is not Sodom and Gomorrah getting turned literally upside down.2 The point is Lot’s prayer.
He’s basically saying, “God, you got me out of town (and thanks for that, by the way), but the earthquake doesn’t stop at the city limits.”
So God sends him to Zoar (which means “little place”), saving him and his family.
Lot’s intercessory prayer was effective. God heard his prayer. But his wife wasn’t grateful. Rather than thanking God, she looked back at her past. That’s why she turned into a pillar of salt.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 26:2-3, 9-10, 11-12
R. O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.
Search me, O LORD, and try me;
test my soul and my heart.
For your mercy is before my eyes,
and I walk in your truth.
R. O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.
Gather not my soul with those of sinners,
nor with men of blood my life.
On their hands are crimes,
and their right hands are full of bribes.
R. O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.
But I walk in integrity;
redeem me, and have mercy on me.
My foot stands on level ground;
in the assemblies I will bless the LORD.
R. O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.
The psalmist, however, does sing prayers of thanks to God. God separates the righteous from the sinners, although it’s not always obvious right away.
We can’t just ask God for help, but thank when he answers our prayers.
Alleluia
Ps 130:5
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Sometimes, trust in God is all we have.
Gospel
Mt 8:23-27
As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!"
He said to them, "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?" Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.
The men were amazed and said, "What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?"
The word for “storm” here is more literally translated as “earthquake.” The allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah isn’t accidental.
Nor is the appeal to Jesus. Just as Lot prayed to go for help, the apostles ask Jesus. And yet, they’re amazed when their intercessory prayer is answered!
It’s because they hadn’t yet fully understood3 the Holy Trinity. By asking Jesus, they are asking God to save them. That’s the sort of man whom even the winds and sea obey.
And that’s who we pray to, when we ask for intercession. God can cause an earthquake so large it upends a city, but He can also calm a raging sea.
Will He, when we ask? It’s impossible to know. God’s ways are not our ways. Still, we should thank Him for hearing our prayers, even if the answer isn’t what we wanted.
It does not hold up, by the way.
That’s the literal translation of the word we render as “overthrew.”
Well, no one fully understands.