How Often?

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Ask and it will be given to you;

seek and you will find;

knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;

and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which one of you would hand his son a stone

when he asked for a loaf of bread,

or a snake when he asked for a fish?

If you then, who are wicked,

know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will your heavenly Father give good things

to those who ask him.”

Matthew 7:7-12
How often have I asked for bread
and said I trusted you alone,
but dreamed a feast of flesh instead,
and in my hands I clutched a stone?

How often have I asked for fish
but cherished serpents in my breast?
I did not know my deepest wish,
and what I loved I could not guess.

Yet water I have ever sought,
and you have given it and more:
a father to me, O my God,
and when I knocked, an open door.

A mother in the dead of night
who came to me before I called;
infinities of hope and might
within your tender arms unfold.

And when I long for only stone,
still give to me your holy bread;
and when I call for bread alone,
fill me with every word you've said.

So show me ever more my heart
that I may learn where my love lies
and follow fast—oh, may I start!—
while yet your daylight fills the skies.
Via Vitae (« Chemin de Vie »), chef d’œuvre de l’orfèvre et joailler parisien Joseph Chaumet (1852-1928) représentant les principales scènes de la vie de Jésus, musée eucharistique du Hiéron, Paray-le-Monial, Saône-et-Loire, France Détail : Le Sermon sur la montagne By © Croquant / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11592838

Ask and Receive

Ask, and then receive.
Seek, and you will find.
How can I believe
you would be so kind?
I am deaf and blind:
How should I perceive
what is in your mind?
How should I conceive?

Eye could never see;
ear could never hear
what the gift would be
is you should draw near.
Mind could not but fear—
how could heart not flee?—
if you should appear,
if you came to me.

Look, O Lord, and see!
Listen, Christ, and hear!
Long my cries will be—
will you yet appear?
Enter in my fear—
stand in dread with me.
Though I shrink, draw near.
Follow though I flee.

So shall I conceive,
filling heart and mind.
So could I believe
God is ever kind.
Though I'm deaf and blind,
yet have I perceived
when you came to find.
Asking, I received.
By James Tissot – https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/12/18/arts/20091218-tissot_5.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8790472https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/12/18/arts/20091218-tissot_5.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8790472