From today’s Gospel: ‘Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened’.

St John Chrysostom commented: ‘We are not ourselves, says He, to strive alone, but also to invoke the help from above: and it will surely come and be present with us, and will aid us in our struggles, and make all easy. Therefore He both commanded us to ask, and pledged Himself to the giving. However, not simply to ask did He command us, but with much assiduity and earnestness. For this is the meaning of seek. For so he that seeks, putting all things out of his mind, is taken up with that alone which is sought … By seeking, then, He declared this; by knocking, that we approach with earnestness and a glowing mind. … And if you dost not receive straightway, do not even thus despair. For to this end He said, knock, to signify that even if He should not straightway open the door, we are to continue there.

May we earnestly ask, seek, and knock – and be not afraid if we wait for the response, for it will surely come, even if the answer is one we do not expect. May God bless you this day and in all that you undertake.