Thursday of the 27th Week of Ordinary Time
Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed among you as crucified? I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain? He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you and does miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?
And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ( as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been from of old),
Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; To show mercy toward our fathers, To remember his holy covenant,
The oath which he swore to Abraham our father, To grant to us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, Should serve him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.
He said to them, "Which of you, if you go to a friend at midnight and tell him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him,' And he from within will answer and say, 'Don't bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give it to you '? I tell you, although he will not rise and give it to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as many as he needs.
"I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.
"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won't give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he asks for an egg, he won't give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"
There's a kind of spiritual exhaustion that creeps in quietly. We start strong — moved by grace, carried by something larger than ourselves — and then, almost without noticing, we begin to rely on our own effort, our own performance, our own careful management of our spiritual lives. Paul sees this happening in Galatia and he's almost incredulous: *You began in the Spirit. Why are you trying to finish in the flesh?*
The question cuts close to home. Consider how easy it is to treat faith like a checklist — Mass attended, rosary prayed, obligation fulfilled. Not that these things are wrong; they're genuinely good. But the movement Paul is pointing to is from *striving* to *receiving*, from self-sufficiency to openness. The Spirit isn't something we manufacture through effort. The Spirit is given.
And that's exactly where Jesus picks up in Luke's Gospel. The parable of the persistent neighbor is sometimes misread as a lesson in wearing God down — as if the Father is reluctant and we have to badger him into generosity. But notice the contrast Jesus draws: even an *irritated* friend eventually gives what's needed. How much more, then, does a *loving* Father give — and give specifically the Holy Spirit — to those who ask?
The asking matters. Not because God needs convincing, but because we need the posture. Asking keeps us oriented rightly. It keeps us from the Galatian mistake of thinking we can complete in the flesh what only the Spirit can finish.
On an ordinary Thursday, in the middle of a week that probably feels more like maintenance than inspiration, this is the invitation: come back to asking. Come back to the open hand.
A few questions to carry through the day:
Where have we quietly shifted from receiving grace to managing it on our own terms? What would it look like to ask God for the Holy Spirit today — not as a formula, but as a genuine need? And what might we be trying to accomplish by our own effort that is actually meant to be a gift?