There are 33 or 34 Sundays in Ordinary Time and the section of the Roman Missal that provides the Sunday’s Collect etc is thin and the sense that we are approaching the final Sundays of the year is when the book mark has few pages left. The theme of faith in God was covered by the 27th Sunday. Then gratitude for what God has done was taken up by the 28th Sunday. We continue to reflect on the attitudes that we bring to prayer in both the 29th and 30th Sundays.
What it means to pray is the point for today. The first imagery of prayer is Moses. Joshua was fighting against Amalek and as long as Moses lifted up his hands, the Israelite army gained the upper hand. Imagine an exhausted Moses with hands heavy from exhaustion and Aaron and Hur supporting prompting up his arms on both sides in order for Joshua to secure Israel’s victory. It is a compelling image which is, in a manner of speaking, repeated in the Gospel. The point is not to confuse the judge with a miserly God but to note the persistence of the widow. In praying persistently, the widow managed to change the mind of the unjust judge. Since God is not unjust, how much more would He listen to us if we were persistent in our praying.
Another word for persistence is regularity. Our idea of a life to the full is possibly governed by a certain notion of carefreeness. It exudes a spontaneity and vivacity suggesting that we are best when life has the least minimum rules that constraint. But the greatest freedom is not found in the absence of constraints but rather the ability to live a regular life. Regularity gives us a sense of order and stability. Ask any child who has to live with caprice. He or she will be unable to put down roots and later in life will struggle with commitment.
The Camino from which I have just returned from is the Northern route that more or less follows the coast of northern Spain. Fruitfulness notwithstanding, I did not like the passage for one reason. The section which we took to Santiago had a number of alternatives. Often enough the choices were between easy and hard. Weakened by Original Sin, human nature tends toward the lazy option. I would have preferred it if I had no choice but to walk because there was the only option available. It would have actually simplified life by reducing the temptation to embrace the path of least resistance.
The Catholic sensibility is marked by an appreciation of order expressed through rhythmic regularity. How does one describe a good Catholic spirituality? Daily prayer that keeps to a consistent schedule. Regular Weekly Mass attendance. Frequent Confession. These form good Catholic habits that will carry us along when times are rough and tough. A good illustration is driving. If you maintain a regular habit, you will soon find your habit in a way protecting you from making rash judgements and movements in your driving. For example, you are less likely to change lanes impulsively.
A regular and disciplined approach in our faith helps us to progress in our virtue and holiness. Prayer is central to this pursuit of holiness. Persistent prayer means that God is not our last resort but our first option. The journey of humanity, seen after Adam and Eve expulsion, observed in the escaping Israelites, has been marked by the struggle to put God first. We were created in the image and likeness of God but our perverted nature wants God to be shaped in our image and likeness. This we read in how soon after they had crossed the Red Sea, the Israelites already wanted a more accessible God when they fashioned the golden calf to worship.
God is faithful in our desire and effort to make His will sovereign in our lives. The idea of God’s faithfulness is a bit tricky for some of us. Somehow there is a sneaky feeling that our present understanding of God’s faithfulness is heavily entwined with materialism. He is our divine ATM, so to speak because we do say that God is providence and He provides for our material needs as He did with the manna given to the escaping Israelites.
Yet Christ hanging on the Cross is our example of what it means that God’s will be sovereign in our lives. Even as life drained out of Jesus, momentarily, He cried out at what He felt to be God’s abandonment. But in the end, He still signalled His commitment to the Father by breathing His last: It is accomplished.
Prayer, apart from asking from God, expressing our contrition, thanksgiving and praising Him is to further our commitment to follow God. Somehow God’s will is quite boring because our sense of fulfilment is shaped by the notion of how life to the full is often portrayed. Everywhere we are bombarded by imageries of plenty, of freedom and of pleasures. Doing God’s will or taking up one’s cross sounds like drudgery or even enslavement. Thus modernity offers “freedom” whereas God’s will binds and is mostly forbidding—cannot do this or cannot do that. There is no prize for guessing which we would choose.
St Paul urged Timothy to remain faithful to God’s word because sacred scripture provides the wisdom necessary for salvation. The ultimate prize to be won by our prayers is not what we ask for but what God has intended for us. That is a life which is far from material fulfilment. Submitting to God’s will is not enslavement but for Him to give us what we most need and that is our salvation.
In conclusion, prayer is the foundation of our relationship with God. It remains the surest connexion we have with God but ironically it is the first thing that we will sacrifice when faced with a wall of “busyness” and we give in to the noble reason of greater good we feel we can achieve through our frenetic activity. We give excuses that we can always pray later when in fact later, we sleep. Keep the prayer, keep the rules and later the rules will protect you and the prayers sustain you.
