Gospel Reflection for Thursday, March 13, 2025

Every time I read this Gospel passage, I remember my mother’s laugh. She was older, very wise, and at that stage in life when many seniors seem to regain the innocence of children. I found her sitting with the Bible open on her lap, quietly laughing. When I asked about that laugh, she said she thought it was really funny—the whole idea of the egg and the stone, the fish and the snake. Ever since, that text brings to mind an image of a crowd that surely included moms and dads laughing along with Jesus’ joke. Clearly, that surprising comparison resonated with the plain common sense of people for whom being a parent was a blessing and loving one’s children was simply natural.

But that common sense doesn’t seem so common in our crazy world. What many people accept as normal (meaning what’s most widespread—even if we have to watch our language politically) is just as acceptable as what once seemed embarrassing or absurd. It’s even possible that some parents provide harmful things for their children, convinced they are doing the right thing. And there are also those who are utterly confused about how to educate or feed their kids.

I believe the crowd listening to Jesus understood his message: God will never answer our requests with something bad. Simply because He is God—that is, Love and Goodness. So yes: let’s ask, seek, and knock, because it will be given to us, we will find, and the door will open. In return, God asks for our complete trust—the kind of trust a child has in their parents. And if, after asking the Lord for something very specific (like solving a problem, healing, or making a change), things stay the same or even get worse, we shouldn’t be discouraged. Instead, we should keep asking and double our trust. More often than not, what we truly desire will happen—but in a way that’s very different from what we imagined. Amazingly different and much better.