Faith-Perseverance-Prayer-St Mary of Scotland

HOMILY WEEK 32 06 – Year I

Faith Expressed through Justice

(Wis 18:14-16; 19:6-9; PS 105; LK 18:1-8)

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What are you praying for?

Today’s readings invite us into a stronger, trusting faith in Jesus, and to persevere in prayer.

Bishop Robert Barron stresses that today’s Gospel exhorts us to pray with persistence. This command is everywhere in the Bible. We see it in Abraham’s steady petition on behalf of the people of Sodom. We see it in today’s account of the persistent widow. We hear it in Jesus’ extraordinary teaching: “Knock and the door shall be opened to you; seek and you will find; ask and it will be given to you.”

One reason we don’t receive what we want through prayer, he continues, is that we give up too easily. What could be behind this rule of prayer? Augustine said that God sometimes delays in giving us what we want because he wants our hearts to expand. The more ardently we desire something, the readier we are when it comes, the more we treasure it. The very act of asking persistently is accomplishing something spiritually important. So, when the Lord seems slow to answer your prayer, never give up.

Somewhere along the way, I came across a five-fold method of prayer:

1) Show up, 2) Speak from the heart, 3) Listen attentively, 4) Let go of the outcome, and 5) Express gratitude, the gratitude that is the focus of Psalm 105.

In its own unique way, the first reading from the Book of Wisdom adds deep spiritual insights into prayer. The “sharp sword of the authentic, all-powerful Word of God” acts best in the “gentle silence” and in the darkness of life’s process, when the “night in its swift course is half gone.”  As Thomas Keating claims, the “language God speaks best is silence.” And the mystic St. John of the Cross loves to speak of the “dark nights” of the senses, soul and spirit. So, God works our healing most often in quiet, silent and invisible ways when we persevere in prayer.

Perseverance is important when it comes to contemplative prayer, especially the practice of Lectio Divina. The first stages involved in that method are relatively easy – reading the passage (lectio), meditating on that passage (meditatio) and having an intimate conversation with God about that passage (oratio). The challenge is putting all thoughts and emotions aside after that (contemplatio), entering into the silence, and just being present to God, soaking up God’s love and trusting that God, in the darkness of that silence, is doing within us whatever God wants to do within us at that moment. For me, that challenge lasts around 45 minutes of my “holy hour.” Honestly, looking back over my life, I can attribute most of the healing that has happened to me to perseverance in that kind of prayer.

The Book of Wisdom continues with a description of what the all-powerful Word of God accomplishes in us – basically the process of transformation. We are “fashioned anew,” water is changed into dry land, raging waters become grassy plains, liberation happens through a sea (alluding perhaps to the crossing of the Sea of Reeds during the exodus from Egypt). The end result is joyful praise, like wild horses ranging free on the prairies, or like lambs leaping and gamboling about when released from their paddocks.

In his comments about the persistent widow, Jesus does not specify what we should pray for, other than perhaps to pray for justice to be done, like the widow’s prayer. This parable was in use at the time of Jesus, who picked it up and used it. Jewish commentators suggest there are two parts to it. Sometimes we are the widows, pestering God for our needs. But at other times, we are the unjust judge, with widows out there who are pestering us for justice, for what we actually owe them – a disturbing and thought-provoking insight, to say the least.

The virtue of perseverance bears fruit in our lives in other ways – especially in the area of physical exercise. It takes patience, discipline and perseverance, for example, to maintain a regular program of exercise, such as aquacize four times a week at an intensity high enough to be cardiovascular, making all the difference in the body and leaving one with a feeling of well-being and accomplishment.

The optional memorial for today is for St. Margaret of Scotland, who in her own way lived out these readings. Margaret, born in Hungary about 1045, was the daughter of Eadward Athling, heir apparent to the English throne, and Princess Agatha of Hungary. At about the age of 10, she returned to England with her family but was forced back into exile after the Norman Conquest in 1066. In 1070, Margaret married Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland. Of their eight children, three sons ruled Scotland in succession and their daughter Maud married Henry I of England. Margaret greatly influenced King Malcolm III. To her husband and his country, she brought the best of European culture and encouraged many by her life of Christian virtue. She worked for justice and improved conditions for the poor, guided the Celtic church toward strong ties with Rome, rebuilt churches, and brought the Benedictines to Scotland. In 1093 her husband and one son were killed in battle. Already on her deathbed, she died four days later. Margaret was a model of motherhood, one of the few canonized saints to have reared a large family. She was canonized in 1251 and in 1673 was named patron saint of Scotland.

The Eucharist itself is one way we persevere in prayer. As Ron Rolheiser puts it, the Eucharist is a vigil we keep until Jesus comes again, a vigil we have been faithfully keeping for over two thousand years. May our celebration today strengthen our faith in Jesus, help deepen our prayer life, and express our faith through acts of justice.