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Rector Emeritus

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Stational Church of San Lorenzo in Panisperna

Stational Church of San Lorenzo in Panisperna

Reflection for Thursday of the First Week of Lent

March 05, 2020

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. 

Every now and then, either in the confessional or in spiritual counseling, a person musters up enough courage to confess that they have lost heart in praying.  After gently inquiring what may have prompted this, the individual often responds, “God just never seems to answer my prayers!”   

I suspect that from time to time, you have wrestled with that same feeling. I know that I have.  Following from the recent Gospel passage in which the Lord sets before his disciples the manner in which we are to pray, with childlike confidence as a son or daughter speaks to his or her own earthly father, the passage above may seem a bit of a cruel irony.  A wise priest once told me many years ago, that God indeed answers all our prayers, but sometimes the answer to our prayers is ‘no!’   

Just as good parents would never foolishly indulge their children with catering to their every whim, the good Lord at times exercises the ‘tough love’ of delaying gratification in response to our prayer requests. Why?  More often than not, so that a greater good or a wiser path may be opened for us.  In the end, what is needed is trust.

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msgr. Arthur a. holquin, s.t.L.

Msgr. Art was ordained to the priesthood on May 25, 1974 for service in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Shortly after the creation of the new Diocese of Orange in 1976, he completed post-graduate work at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, obtaining an S.T.L. in Sacramental Theology and an M.A. in Religious Studies. He has served the Diocese in a number of ministerial capacities:  Director for the Office of Worship, Director for the Office of Evangelization, Rector of Holy Family Cathedral and finally, Pastor and Rector of Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano. In 2009 he contracted a rare neurological condition (Primary Lateral Sclerosis) that gradually impacted his walking and speech. In 2014 he was named Rector Emeritus of the Basilica parish. Msgr. Art’s favorite quotation is from Blessed Henry Cardinal Newman: To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.


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