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1.
The necessity of prayer
Some people don’t see the necessity
of prayer simply because they don’t need God in their lives. Others
consider God to exist only when misfortune or difficulty comes; busy
when it’s peak season but complacent when it’s off season. Still for some
prayer is like an attendance in school, you must be present but you can
be absent at times.
For a person who truly understands
what prayer means, it is a way of life. He or she who sees the necessity
of prayer knows that what he/she actually receives is not just the grace
he/she asked for but the Source himself. The true encounter with God happens in
prayer because it is through prayer that we learn the language of God and able
to communicate with Him.
Talking about man-made calamities –
killings, abuse, and ecosystem imbalance among others? They have the ‘no
communication’ and ‘miscommunication’ as culprits. When we disregard the
necessity to learn the language of God we will always end up clueless, accusing
and uncaring human beings. Prayer helps us align our intention to that of God’s.
I believe that this is the first lesson Jesus is teaching us in the parable: highlighting
the vital role of prayer in one’s life.
2.
The unceasing prayer
When prayer becomes a way of life it
becomes a second nature. It becomes a breath which vivifies man or as St Chrysostom
puts it, ‘As the body without the soul cannot live, so the soul without
prayer is dead and emits an offensive odor.’ Prayer then becomes an
obligation in the positive sense. It is more like a goal to accomplish, an
ambition to fulfill, a deadline to meet or a work to keep only that you are
happy about doing it. But like any other obligation, prayer needs desire,
discipline and determination. We often falter in such requirements especially
when things don’t materialize the way we imagine them to happen. We frown at
the result, unhappy we quit, and dissatisfied we resort to short-cut plans. Unfortunately
in the long run we give up.
Why continue to pray when one does
not receive what he/she asked for? It seems reasonable to say that since a
request is not granted that there’s no longer point in praying. God knows what we need anyway. But St Thomas
has this to say, ‘not that prayer is necessary in order that God may know
our necessities, but in order that we may know the necessity of having recourse
to God to obtain the help necessary for our salvation, and may thus acknowledge
him to be the author of all our good. ’
God understands. He knows what we
ask of Him but He also knows what is good for us. Sometimes God’s answer is a
test of faith, not to disappoint us but to purify our intentions. He actually
is always ready to give His grace but oftentimes it is us who aren’t. Unceasing
prayer is the process we need to undergo through; the first grace that we
should be asking God for in the first place.
3.
The indefatigable prayer
Some people don’t see the necessity
of prayer, some people pray but cease when dejected but we are encouraged as St
Paul says in the 2nd reading, ‘I charge you in the presence of
God and of Christ Jesus,…be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient,
convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.’ (2Tm
3.14-4.2) We can win the battles of life if we pray like that. In the first
reading, Moses and Joshua led the Israelites into victory against Amalek but
Aaron and Hur helped them win the battle by their divinely inspired common
sense, remaining steady till sunset (Ex 17.8-13). The widow in the
Gospel’s parable obtained justice from an ungodly judge because her persistence
weighed him down.
It doesn’t take a genius to know how
to pray. The saintly Little Flower wrote, “For
me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven,
it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”
Prayer requires willing submission and admission – that prayer is a grace to be
received and that without the assistance of this grace we can do any good thing
or as St. Leo the Great expresses it, ‘Man does no good thing, except
that which God, by his grace, enables him to do.’
Finally, just as the last words of
our Lord in the Gospel today, will He find faith on earth?
Amen.
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