29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, C October 21, 2007
I asked a few parishioners this past week to listen to this gospel and then tell me, honestly, what they felt after hearing it. Most couldn’t get beyond Jesus’ words, “Pray always.” People said this sounded “boring, boring, boring!” Second, after hearing the story of the widow, they said they felt frustration. One person said, “I don't have the patience to keep asking God over and over again for what I need. I just stop asking if I don't get it fast enough." So, for some people, today’s good news is, if you want to be a good Christian, you must be constantly bored and frustrated!
If these are your reactions, they can poison your life of prayer. At times we do miss the point of a gospel text. What do the concepts pray always and be persistent in prayer really mean?
Pray always. This is not about prayer in the formal sense like saying your prayers, going to Mass, meditating and the like. Not even contemplative monks and nuns engage in formal prayer all the time. That's humanly impossible. Praying always is a constant awareness of God that is both conscious and subconscious. God has claimed you, has come to inhabit your heart and pervades your whole being. Praying always is allowing this presence of God to affect your every thought and action.
How to allow God's presence to affect your every thought and action is through attentive listening. This is the way you pray always. You see, prayer is a dialogue, not a monologue. Prayer is a talk with God, not a talk to God. In fact, prayer is 99% listening and 1% speaking. So how do you pray always? Just do your 1% and ask God, “What do you want me to do?” Then listen for the answer and follow it. That's the other 99%. When you do so, your whole life becomes a prayer, for nothing you do is divorced from your relationship with God, everything relates to it, everything follows from it, and you're always aware of it.
Bored with the thought of praying always? Of course you will be if you equate it with conscious formal prayer. And bored you will be if your prayer is 99% talking to God. Is there anything more boring than listening to yourself talk?
Now we come to, Be persistent in prayer. The parishioners I spoke with had a tough time with patience and perseverance in prayer. It is easy to feel frustrated and give up. Of course, you'll get frustrated and give up too if you think God is like the stubborn judge who’s mind you can change by constant badgering. Here’s a little secret. You can't change God's mind by repeated petitioning. God's mind is already made up. You have to get used to the fact that God has already decided on nothing but the best for you, and you can't change that no matter how hard you try. So, what does your prayer of petition change? Only you. Over the years I have known many young adults who after four years in college praying for guidance still had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives. But God answered their prayers. Typically, they had become calmer, less frantic, less anxious, more trusting that God was always with them. I know others who at the age of 35 or 40 still haven't met their future spouses, even though they have been praying for this for 15 or 20 years. God has answered their prayers, too. They have become more patient, more understanding of other people, more sensitive to the needs of others, and more confident that God has not forgotten and will guide their search for the special person they are looking for. I know parents and grandparents who have been praying for years that their children or grandchildren will return to active practice of their faith. Those folks may not yet be back in Church every Sunday, but you can be sure God has answered those prayers, blessing and watching over those children and grandchildren in ways the parents and grandparents are unaware of.
God does work wonders, even wonders we don’t see, if we, as Jesus says, pray always without becoming weary.