Homilies

29th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: PRAYING WITH CONFIDENCE

IN OUR BUSY WORLD, prayer seems to be the last among the priorities. In fact, more people no longer pray to God in a regular basis. But, we can also people who feel guilty when they forget to pray to God. The fact that they feel the guilt, we may say that prayer remains a value, and a responsibility that one has to accomplish.

Through the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus invites his disciples and us to pray always without becoming weary. In this parable, the widow is being described as persistent in her search for justice. Her persistence pays off because in the end the judge was able to deliver a just decision for the widow. This gospel passage illustrates us some qualities of prayer, qualities that we should develop.

First, our prayer must be characterized by persistence and perseverance. This may not appear relevant because we are accustomed to having instant results of everything that we do. Globalization and internet give us the convenience because of the closeness and instantaneity of communication. As a result, we hate heavy traffic because it eats so much of our time. In fact, the economists say that heavy traffic would mean losses of profits. Also, we hate delayed flights. But this is the truth, despite we want things to appear as quickly as possible, there are circumstances and situations which are beyond our control. These situations should teach us the values of patience, persistence, and perseverance. These are our proper attitudes or values when we pray. Things that we ask from God are beyond our control, so we must be persistent in prayer. Christ urges us to pray without becoming weary.

Second, prayer is characterized by regularity. It is wrong to say that we only pray when we need something from God. That is unfair to God, because, in that sense, we are simply using him. Praying is about relationship. Like in human relationships, the more we spend time for each other, the more we know and love each other. Praying is also about communication. Like in human communications, the more frequent we communicate, the closer we become to each other. Thus, regularity in prayer enriches our relationship and communication with God.

Third, our prayer must be characterized by confidence and trust. We should put confidence and trust in God who is the giver of good gifts. The question to be asked when we pray is this: how much trust do I place in God when I come for prayer. The problem with other “pray-ers” is that they appear to control the flow of the prayer, they appear to control God. So, frustration is a knee-jerk reaction to the seeming delay of the response of God to our prayers. But we need to change that. In prayer, actually, we surrender ourselves before God. While we desire instant results, we have to realize that God seems to be slow in responding to our needs. But this should not be a reason to be disappointed. In the final analysis, God knows what our needs are. But sometimes we are placed on a test. Our faith and confidence in him is being tried and tested on the process. Like Abraham, we simply put our trust in him.

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