Homily for the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Oct. 16, 2022. Book of Exodus 17:8-13; Gospel of St. Luke 18:1-8. Theme: Lord, Teach Me to Pray!
Today’s liturgy directs our thoughts to the vital role that prayer must have in our lives. You can find articles and podcasts and all kinds of “how to” books about prayer but really it’s quite simple and uncomplicated. Prayer has been most simply defined as having an honest conversation with God. And like all conversations it must be a two-way street, which means that along with speaking we make time for listening so that we can hear what God is saying to us. And of course for this to be most fruitful we have to make time for silence and solitude in our lives.
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 in order to persevere. And in the gospel Jesus uses the example of a persistent widow as an example for our praying. She keeps coming back to the judge, constantly in his face, demanding what is rightfully hers. The point of this parable is not that our prayer wears God out, because it doesn’t. Rather, it teaches us that perseverance reveals the intensity and sincerity of our prayer which somehow touches God’s heart.
These examples of prayer that we find in today’s readings all depend upon faith, which means trust. And as we all know trust is born out of repeated experiences in a relationship. Genuine faith in God, the kind of faith that heals and transforms lives, is also only born out of a personal relationship. And the way we grow in this kind of personal relationship with God is through prayer; through making and spending time with the Lord in our daily lives. So I think it's pretty easy to see that prayer, that is, having regular conscious communication with God, must be a non-negotiable component in our lives. And like all relationships, we will only get out of it what we put into it.
Think 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 your life. How long do you think that relationship would last? How deeply significant would it remain in your life? I think we all know that under such circumstances it would surely wither and eventually die.
And the same is true about our faith-relationship with God. If we don’t give it the attention it needs; if we don’t take time to nurture and deepen it, it will surely wither and eventually die. We call this sad experience “losing the gift of faith”. We hear Jesus referring to this tragedy 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? I think this serious question is specially addressed to us today because Our Lord knew what the culture we are now living in would be like. He knew that the commercial secularism and militant relativism of our times would seek to distract us from belief in the Divine. He knew that the truth of his Word and the Voice of his Church would be ridiculed and rejected by many who follow the ways of the world and abandon their Christianity. His heart was surely broken over the foreknowledge that so many who were brought to Him as infants in baptism would grow up to not know Him nor the depths of His love for them.
But I wonder if these wandering sheep ever really knew Christ in the first place? What I mean is, did their parents and teachers who taught them to develop their minds and their talents, also teach them to develop a personal relationship with God by daily prayer? And I don’t mean just reciting memorized prayers or routinely repeating the responses at Mass, as important as these can be. But did they learn how to speak with God from the heart as with a Real Person? As a Father who created and cares for them? As Lord and Savior who freely suffered and died for them? As the Spirit of Love who comes to dwell within their hearts? Or were they left to flounder on their own, formed primarily by the media that cares only about their money and the allegiance of their minds and not a thing about their spiritual well-being and the salvation of their eternal souls?
But there’s still hope for them and there’s still hope for us who may not have been all that devoted to prayer. Because in Christ bad news can always be transformed into good news and so it’s never too late to renew an old friendship with God or begin a new one for the first time. And this hope of a new beginning is only a whisper and a breath away from those who want to claim it because the Risen Christ is always present and waiting for an invitation into our lives. All we have to do is turn to him in our hearts and say, “Lord, teach me to pray.”
The Persistent Widow & the Unjust Judge
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