IT IS ALWAYS NECESSARY TO ASK

 It is necessary to ask to create in the soul an environment of receptivity.

But why this urge to ask, if God is omniscient, and knows perfectly well what we need even before asking? Jesus explicitly stated that "your heavenly Father knows what you need even before asking him."

And despite this categorical statement, Jesus continues to repeat that it is always necessary to ask and never stop asking.

This human attitude cannot be meant to remind God that we need this and that as if He could forget us or ignore our daily needs. But the purpose of the request is another, that is, to create in ourselves such an attitude that God can answer us, for only "when the disciple is ready does the Master appear."

Cosmic laws work with unfailing precision, and can never fail to work. But they can only function where there is a favourable environment for their operation. In nonhuman nature, these laws work quite automatically because the propitious environment always exists due to the mechanics of nature’s laws. The sun will always rise in the east and set in the west without advancing and delaying a single second. Plants will always flourish and bear fruit according to their intrinsic and infallible laws.

In the world of human beings, however, there may or may not be the circumstances for the operation of cosmic laws. Man can make this work possible or impossible because where free will prevails, nothing is predictable. God wants to give man the goods that are in God, but man can obstruct his human recipient and not receive the grace of the divine donor, just as he can enlarge his recipient to receive the divine gift to a greater extent. The human container, as it turns out, is very elastic and can narrow or widen.

Asking, praying, seeking, knocking on the door is meant to widen the human container more and more.

The old philosophical adage, "the received is in the recipient according to the recipient's capacity" illustrates this truth very well. Every finite being receives from the Infinite what corresponds to it to a greater or lesser extent of its finitude. If the capacity of the finite equals 10, the container will receive 10; if equal to 50 will receive 50; if it equals 100, will receive 100. Whoever goes to the ocean with a cup will fill a cup of water; who goes with a litre will fill a litre; who goes with a bucket will fill a bucket - not because of the ocean, but because of the capacity of the glass, the litre and the bucket.

To receive from the Infinite Plenitude, finite man must extend his finitude, which has many degrees, but whose potentiality can be increased by his free will.

The order to pray, ask, seek, knock on the door has nothing to do with God; it has to do only with the man.

Suppose someone is at noon in a dark room with closed windows. For sunlight to enter, it is not necessary to go to the sun, or ask the sun to send its rays to the darkroom; just open a window towards the sun, open it a little to receive less light, open it a lot to receive plenty of light. A plant turns its leaves to the sun to receive light and heat to grow, flourish and bear fruit - but the sun is unaffected by any of this.

Man's free will is his greatest privilege - and also his greatest danger. The use or lack of use of his freedom makes a man better or worse. By free will, man is his own God - and also his anti-God, the creator of his heaven or hell.

Cosmic destiny depends on God alone - but human destiny depends on man, not in the independent level of free will, but in the level of his freedom. External circumstances can facilitate or hinder the exercise of free will - but no circumstance can compel a man to be good or to be bad.