29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
Many times we have questioned God about why our prayers are not answered. We have even thought that God is indifferent to our needs and our pleas to Him, especially when we need it most. We have wondered why the good suffer so much and why when we work so hard in our spiritual lives to come closer to God, He seems far away from us. We have worried about why evil exists and why we, Catholic Christians experience so much trials and persecution for being disciples of Christ. We have sometime in our lives asked many such questions or similar questions to God on why our needs or wants are not granted us by Him immediately we ask for it, yet He told us in Matthew 7:7-8, “to ask and we shall receive, to seek and we shall find, to knock and the door will be opened to us”.
The parable we heard today in the gospel reading from the gospel of Saint Luke 18:1-8, talks about prayer, while emphasizing the essence and importance of persistence and perseverance in our prayer and spiritual lives. Jesus in today’s gospel reading was not aiming to compare God to the unjust judge or suggest that the God answers our prayers because we are bothering Him, rather Jesus contrasts God with the judge stating that if an unjust man can come to justice eventually, how much more will God answer us His children when we persistently call on Him. Jesus is urging us to pray consistently that is, always, in every case or on every occasion and to persevere persistently that is, continuously in a persistent manner in our spiritual lives. Remember God’s time is the best time like we always say, and He wants us to repent and make changes in our lives so as to come closer to Him. Hence, persistence in our prayer and spiritual lives is key to our journey to repentance.
Remember my dear brothers and sisters, Perseverance develops our trust and confidence in God, helping us realize how weak we are and how humble we need to be as children of God. And Prayer is key to making that hope, trust and confidence a reality in our relationship with God. So let us pray consistently that is, always, in every case or on every occasion and let us persevere persistently that is, continuously in a persistent manner in our spiritual lives. Please pay attention to St. Paul’s message to us today in our second reading, in his Second Letter to Timothy (2 Tm 3:14-4:2) reminding us to “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it, and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.”
