Experiencing God 243 Persistence in Prayer

The theme of the readings for the 29th Sunday in ordinary time is a call to be persistent and continuous in our prayers to the Father. Luke, more than all the other Gospel writers stresses the importance of prayer as that means of retaining our communion with God.  It is Luke who often has Jesus going off to a lonely place by Himself to pray, to be present with the Father, to fortify that strong connection of love and trust. There are three points that I would like to make in respect to these readings.
Firstly: Faith, whether it be in others or in God, is built on a relationship and love and trust.  If we don’t love someone, if we don’t trust someone, then it is almost humanly impossible to have faith in them and to respond in faith. 

We currently have a federal election underway in Canada.  On the news, I’ve heard many interviews from people who are still undecided as to how they will vote.  Their most common complaint is that the whole campaign has been so negative that they don’t trust that any of the candidates will fulfill their election promises.  So many will probably not vote or end up spoiling their ballet. This is often the response where trust is absent. 
A couple of weeks ago, I shared the story about the little five year old girl who wandered away from her parents and climbed an Oak tree in her back yard. After climbing about 10 feet and looking down, she became very frightened. She cried out to her father for help. Her father came running to her, positioned himself under the tree, and then encouraged her to jump from the branch where she was sitting into his arms. 

It was because of her trust, because of her love for her father that she was able to respond in faith and jump from the tree to safety.  That’s why love and trust are so important in our family relationships if we wish them to remain strong and to grow. A violation of that trust can and does destroy many relationships. 
Secondly, we are all on a journey, a journey towards greater relatedness with God; or we should be.  To move towards this greater faith is God is to develop a stronger relationship of love and trust with Him.  In our journey, we must move away from selfishness towards selflessness.  We must move away from isolation and alienation towards the greater interaction with community and other people of faith. We must move away from being unloving and those feelings of being unloved towards greater intimacy with God.  Sometimes we like to think of this as happening suddenly, as in a prayer offered and instantly answered, but for most of us, this is a slow process of growth, often taking place over the course of a whole lifetime.
Thirdly, the principal way to grow in our relationship with God, to enhance our love and trust, is through persistent prayer.  The best description that I’ve ever heard about prayer comes from C. S. Lewis.  He says that the purpose of prayer is not to conform God’s will to my will, but to conform my will to God’s.  I’ll repeat that: “The purpose of prayer is not to conform God’s will to my will, but to conform my will to God’s.”  To grow towards greater relatedness with God, to conform my will to God’s will, is a process of continual growth that takes place over a lifetime.  And it requires persistence in our prayer. 

As in our marriages and other human relationships, mature love and trust requires our continual attention, our continual working at it.  When it comes to God, this is the labor of our continual prayer.

In our opening line of the Gospel, Jesus is telling his disciples:  “You must pray always and never lose heart.”  In other words, when it comes to growth in our intimacy with God, persistence in our prayer is so critical. 

And as an illustration of this persistence, he shares the parable of the widow and the unjust judge.  The widow has suffered an injustice, we don’t know what it is, but it is obviously something that has prevented her from getting on with her life.  There’s an obstacle or block that needs to be removed so that life can be restored.  So she appeals to a judge for help.  But the unjust judge refuses because he has no concern for her plight.  We read that the judge has neither fear of God or respect for people. In other words, he doesn’t care.  But it is in the widow’s persistence that the unjust judge eventually yields to her request, even if done for selfish reasons. The obstacle or block is removed and she is able to get on with her life.  Now if persistence works even in those cases with those who do not care, then how much more certainly it will work with God who does care.  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells us: “Will not God grant justice for His chosen ones who cry out to Him?  Will he delay long in helping them?  I tell you, God will quickly grant justice”. 

Like yourselves, during my own lifetime, I’ve had many obstacles removed which enabled me to get on with my life at that particular moment and to move forward with greater love and trust: And the process continues.  I still have a long way to go.  But I know that through my own daily discipline of prayer God is there to help me with this process of ongoing growth. And I don’t see this as ever ending. 

Much of my prayer now is not necessarily an activity that has to get done; but has become a way of being with God, a way of seeing God in all things and knowing that God is presence no matter what the circumstances.

Perhaps this is an analogy of what’s going on in our first reading where the Israelites were doing battle with their enemy at Rephidim.  As long as they saw Moses’ outreached hand, they prevailed against their enemy because it was a visible sign of God’s Presence with them. But when Moses’ hand was no longer seen, the enemy prevailed.  When we know that God is Present with us, that He is on our side, then we have a much greater strength to fight the battles of life that come our way.  As we read in the psalm: I lift up my eyes, from where will my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.     

Jesus tells us in John’s Gospel:  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing”.

Prayer is that sacred way of maintaining our connection with Christ the vine, so that we may grow in the way of life to which He is calling us.

Several years ago, at a workshop given to the Deacons and their wives, I recall Archbishop Mancini saying that when it comes to prayer, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t.  What he meant by this is that we all have our own particular way of coming to Christ, and connecting with Him in a relationship of love and trust.  Find and follow the way that works best for you.  It may be through the reading of scripture or the daily use of the church prayer.  It may be from daily mass or sitting before the Blessed Sacrament.  It may be from being part of a faith sharing group, Marian devotion, or the silence and stillness of meditation.  It may be several or all of these.  Find the way that works best for you so that you may enhance that love and trust of God in your own life.  And resist the distractions that come along, whatever they may be, to do nothing.  Prayer is there as a discipline to help us break the roots of our own insecurity, to break our excessive attachment to pleasure, comfort and things, so that we may enter into that greater relatedness with Christ.