Heart Speaks to Heart

Catholic Liturgy for the 29^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Oct. 20, 2019. Gospel of Luke 18:1-8. Theme: Heart Speaks to Heart

Today’s liturgy directs our thoughts to the important role of prayer in our lives. Prayer, according to Jesus, is simply speaking heart to heart with God. It’s the honest interpersonal conversation we have with God about our lives, our thoughts, and anything or everything that is happening to us and around us. Prayer is a non-negotiable component in our relationship with God and like all relationships, we will only get out of it what we put into it.

In today’s first reading we see Moses giving all he’s got to the task of praying. His prayer is so intense that it begins to wear him out and he seeks the help of others to enable him to continue on. This speaks to me of the importance of having like-minded friends and the spiritual support of our parish, to help us remain faithful and trusting in our relationship with God especially when we undergo difficult times and experiences in our lives.

And in the gospel Jesus uses the example of a persistent widow who will not take no for an answer. She keeps coming back to the judge, constantly in his face, demanding what is rightfully hers. But the point of this parable is not that prayer changes God’s mind, because it doesn’t. Rather, it teaches us that perseverance pays off. And often we get way more than we asked for or imagined.

These examples of prayer that we find in today’s readings all depend upon the gift and virtue of faith. Faith is a word that we use a lot and I think most people would define it as believing in God, in the Scriptures and in the teachings of the Church. Now, this is surely part of it, but Christian faith is so much more than just believing. To believe simply means that we accept what someone says as being true. In other words, faith on that level means religious knowledge, head knowledge.

But the Scriptures teach us that real faith, the faith that changes hearts and transforms lives, is so much more than just head knowledge.  Faith means trust in God. And as we all know trust can only be born out of a personal relationship. Head knowledge alone does not form a relationship. But heart knowledge does. And this only comes to us through prayer; through making and spending time with God in daily life.  And I think we can appreciate the truth of this by reflecting on the experiences we have in our human relationships.

Think for a moment right now about a relationship in your life that is very important to you. Now imagine for a moment what that relationship would be like if you never gave attention to that person; if you never phoned or texted with them; if you never made time to be with them in person and share what’s happening in each of your lives.  How long do you think that relationship would last? How deeply significant would it remain in your lives? I think we all know that under such circumstances a friendship that is treated like that would surely wither and eventually die.

And the same is true about our faith-relationship with God.  If we do not give it the attention it needs; if we do not take the time to nurture and deepen it, it will surely die.  We call this sad experience of losing the gift of faith.  And we hear Jesus make the connection between faith and prayer in the last verse of today’s gospel, asking if when he returns to earth he will find any faith left in people’s hearts.

And sadly, this seems to be the case with many today and especially among our young people.  Many of them have gone to Catholic schools or parish religious ed programs but these all have to do with head knowledge. I often wonder if anyone has ever taught them to acquire heart knowledge by prayer?  Not just to recite prayers but to develop the habit of speaking with God heart-to-heart? Because it’s only through prayer that we come to experience God up close and personal and know that he is not just some Cosmic Energy or Higher Power but as a Father who created and loves us, a Brother who became human and died for us, a Spirit who comes to dwell within us.

But as Christians who know the power of prayer we do not give up on anyone, even if it seems that they no longer have faith. We know that intense prayer like Moses and persistent asking like the widow, can bring us more than we can ask for or imagine. The classic Catholic example of this can be found in the life of the 5^th century North African saint, Monica.  She prayed for 30 years that her son, the hedonistic pagan Augustine, would just simply become a Christian. That’s all she asked and she never gave up praying for this request. And she kept trusting and praying even as he kept going from bad to worse as the years went by.  And what did Monica end up getting? Not only a Christian son, but one who went on to become an important bishop and one of the greatest theologian-saints in all of church history!

So, let’s keep growing in our faith-relationship with God by making and keeping this commitment to daily prayer from the heart.  It will fill us with peace and strength, knowing that God, who desires only what is best for us and who alone sees the bigger picture of our lives, can and will make all things, even the difficult things, work out for the good of those who trust in him.