EXODUS 17: 8-13
PSALM 120
2 TIMOTHY 3: 14 – 4:2
LUKE 18: 1-8
Have you ever felt at times that is difficult to pray?
Sometimes maybe it is because we are too busy.
Sometimes maybe it is because we have doubts, especially if our prayers do not seem to be answered.
We may feel that God does not listen to our prayers.
Some years ago in Belgium, a number of little children were kidnapped.
Many people were praying for them.
They were later found: dead and were sexually abused.
At the funeral, the priest asked “Why did God not answer our prayers?”
We keep praying for peace for places like in the Ukraine, the Middle East and many parts of Africa, yet peace seems so far away.
We even pray for our family members who have left the church, yet there seem to be no effect.
Does God not respond to our prayers?
Today’s readings speak about prayer
In the first reading, Moses with the help of Aaron and Hur pray for their people.
Moses tires but he perseveres for he realizes that his people depend on his prayers.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus encourages us to persevere in prayer.
He tells a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart.
If an evil judge relents at the persistence of a widow, would not God, who is just and merciful.
But Jesus is teaching us something more about prayer.
He asks, “When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?”
Prayer demands faith on our part.
It is only in faith that we can hear God’s response to our prayers.
Faith is about trusting in God’s way and not our way.
Faith is about being humble to accepting God’s way
Faith opens us to listening to God’s love and will speaking to us.
For faith calls for an openness and obedience to God’s way.
The question this poses is ‘How well are we open to listening to God in prayer?”
In the second reading St Paul calls Timothy to be faithful to the Good News.
This is God’s central response to our payers today; be faithful to the Good News for God has come to save us from sin. Repent and believe the Good News.
Unfortunately we as a society have opened ourselves to evil and so invite evil into our lives.
We wonder why the little children in Belgium had to suffer yet do not question the permissive society we have become accepting and encouraging a wide variety of pornography and false values in our world especially through the media..
When we pray for peace in the world or even in our families, we can often pray for a change in the other party and forget that maybe we too need to change.
How well as a world community do we seek to share the world’s good with each other.
It is so hard to have an agreement to tackle climate change.
Would we and the rich nations agree to live a more simple life that others in the poor countries may have a better life?
What influences our votes in election: What is it in for me or the party who promises to increase manifold aid to the poor here and in the world?
What about our prayers for the sick?
We can only understand God’s response in the love that Jesus had at the Garden of Gethsemane.
Our very love acceptance can be an offering for the salvation of souls.
God’s response to our prayers often calls upon us to accept his ways in faith, rather than our own.
‘Prayer does not change God, but it changes the person who prays.
Prayer is the most powerful instrument against all evil.
The power of prayer lies in the love and humility that comes with it.
Merredin Catholic Parish 