Pray Continually Luke 18 1-8

 

----- Forwarded Message ----

From: Raymond . . .

To: Donald . . . .

Sent: Tue, 19 October, 2010 8:01:32

Subject:  Pray Continually

SUN 29 OCT 2010   Homily: Fr. Raymond.

In today’s  Gospel Jesus told his disciples about “..the need to pray continually”.  In doing this he was well aware that he would also have to tell them about the need “never to lose heart”  The two things go together: “praying continually” and “not losing heart”.....perseverance and trust.  In this story of the widow and the unjust judge, Jesus is obviously inviting us to consider how the unjust Judge yields to the perseverance and trust of the widow’s prayers and he is inviting us to compare this with how God yields to the perseverance and trust of our own prayers.

This is not the only time in the gospels when Jesus teaches us that our persevering prayers are always heard, our persevering prayers are always answered:   “Ask and you shall receive.  Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you.”  What teaching could be clearer?  Whatever you ask the Father in my name will be granted you”.   What could be more explicit?

Unfortunately, however, our own personal experience doesn’t seem to give us proof of the validity of this teaching.  How often have we not prayed long and earnestly and sincerely for something and yet not got it? So, if Jesus’ teaching is true, as indeed it must be, then we are forced to conclude that God’s answers to our prayers are often something different from what we expect them to be, they are something that we cannot understand, they are something that comes under the category of “God’s ways and not our ways”.  

Perhaps one way to consider this problem is to realise that we are like children before him.  We ask for things unreasonably, we ask for things that would be harmful for us in one way or another:  we ask for things that might even destroy us if we got them. We ask for things that would even separate us from the God from whom we are asking them.  God, as a truly loving Father then, cant answer such requests, not in the way we would hope anyway.  But one thing is certain, God, as a loving Father, will never ignore our requests.

There is no such thing as an unanswered prayer.