Homily: Sunday 29 C 251019
The message of the Liturgy of the Word today is about prayer. The picture the Gospel offers us of the bag lady pestering the judge to do his duty is something many of us have seen in some form. She doesn’t give up; her persistence is a lesson for all of us. If our cause is just, don’t give up.
The first reading offers a similar word of encouragement. Moses and the Chosen People have just escaped their Egyptian slave masters and they are attacked by the Amalekites. Moses tells Joshua to prepare for battle while Moses, Aaron and Hur view the battle from a nearby hill. Moses raises his arms in what must have been a prayer position. As long his arms were outstretched the Israelites prevailed. To continue in this prayer position Aaron and Hur stood on either side holding Moses arms in position. The scene of Moses raised hands in prayer and his aids assisting him reminds us of the relationship of the people to bring about the manifestation of God’s power. God’s power is working in and through human effort.
It was just a few weeks ago that the Liturgy of the Word taught us how the Lord prayed when his disciples asked him to teach them to pray as John taught his followers to pray. That instruction was followed immediately by the parable about persistence in prayer by the man’s persistence in asking for bread to feed his guest.
How often we are asked or we ourselves ask the question, “What is prayer?
Prayer is not magic nor is it a transactional scheme that automatically grants the request. Nor is it a vending machine; put in the coin and out comes the product.
“The Catechism of the Catholic Church” tells us that prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God, quoting St. John of Damascus. Prayer is communication with God, sometimes in silence. In prayer we seek to become one with God, but that doesn’t always have to be in words. Like human communication the silence between friends may be the deepest expression of a bond of unity.
Prayer is also listening to God; it is also an occasion to make requests of God as the Lord’s prayer teaches us. Prayer is thanking God which is the primal meaning of our gathering for this Eucharist. Prayer is also praise and a manner to express our love for God. And in prayer we seek forgiveness for our sins.
One of the great examples of prayer in the Old Testament is the struggle of Jacob in the middle of the night on his way to meet his estranged brother Esau. Out of nowhere a stranger appears and the two wrestle until daybreak with neither of them uttering a word – good Trappists. Then the stranger demands to be let go and Jacob refuses unless the stranger bless him. The stranger blesses him and changes his name from Jacob to Israel “since you have shown your strength against God and man and have prevailed”. The place was named Peniel which means “I have seen God face to face and have survived”. The image of prayer as wrestling with God should teach us not to expect an easy way.
Our Gospel parable presents a very formidable woman face to face with a judge who respects no one. One cannot but think of the women who gathered in the squares of Chile and Argentina beating their pots and pans wanting to know the where abouts of the “disappeared”. If the unjust judge will answer such persistence how much more will a loving God readily answer our prayers without delay? But there is still the question what happens when despite our trust and perseverance, God appears to remain silent and indifferent to our plight?
Our response is to look to Jesus who offers us the example of praying before important decisions; of spending the night in prayer; of calling on the Father to perform a miracle. On the night before he died, he prayed to be freed from the burdens of death on a cross always adding to his petition to the Father, “not my will but yours be done”. And God appears to remain silent and indifferent to the plight of his Son. Jesus struggled in prayer because prayer is often a wrestling with God. Jesus’ prayer is also a radical trust in God. He accepts the way forward into the mystery of death to ultimately know the resurrection the new life that we will all share.
Our perseverance in prayer must be with the condition that we fully accept the new life that the response to our prayer will bring. Our life in God is always moving into the new creation; God is always calling us to a new horizon of hope.