29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C); October 16, 2022

Ex 17:8-13.  Ps 121.  2 Tim 3:14-4:2.  LK 18:1-8

Deacon Jim McFadden

At the start of today’s Holy Mass, we address a prayer to our Lord that offers us a key to understand today’s readings.  We pray: “Create in us a generous and steadfast heart, so that we may always serve you with fidelity and purity of spirit” (Collect).

This prayer cuts to the quick:  left to ourselves, we cannot give ourselves such a “generous and steadfast heart”; so, we ask our God to give it to us as his “creation.” In this way, we come to the theme of prayer, which undergirds today’s readings.  And, without a generous and steadfast heart, we cannot do our Father’s will which we are called to do as his beloved children.

So, we pray and we pray constantly!  We do so just like Moses, who was above all a man of prayer: he was always talking with God.  We see him today in the battle against Amalek, standing on atop of the hill with his hands raised.  The battle, a metaphor for the spiritual struggle, is going on a long time—sound familiar?!  So, Moses’ arms are getting tired and they begin to fall to his side.  But, if he stops praying, the tide of the struggle will go against his people.  Notice what happens: his brother Aaron and Hur made Moses sit on a stone and they held up his arms, until the final victory was won.

Brothers and sisters, the spiritual struggle  is just too hard and demanding to be done by ourselves.  We need each other.  This is the kind of the spiritual life that holy Mother the Church wants for her children: not to win by war and violence, but by cooperation and peace.  Indeed, the Church is a great school of prayer: this is what we do!

This is an important message of our first reading: commitment to prayer demands that we support one another.  Journeying through life is a hard slog; weariness is inevitable.  We will get tired and we’ll be tempted to throw in the towel, especially in the face of intimidating obstacles.  But, with the support of our brothers and sisters, our prayer can persevere until the Lord completes his work.

In the second reading, St. Paul writes Timothy, his disciple and coworker, and urges him to hold fast to what he has learned and believed (cf. 2 Tim 3:14).  But Timothy could not do this with a “stiff upper lip” resolve: the battle of perseverance cannot be won without prayer.  Not sporadic or hesitant prayer, but continuously so that the channel between God and the human person remains open. If we pray when we feel like it, do it in spurts, then the divine energy will occasionally spurt, but may ultimately dry up.  Instead, we should pray just as Jesus tells us in the Gospel: “Pray always, without ever losing heart” (Lk 18:1).  This is the Christian way of life: remaining steadfast in prayer, to remain steadfast in faith and testimony.  Do you see how they go together?

Here once again we may hear that negative voice within us: “but, Lord, how can we not grow weary?  We are human…just look at all the problems, conflicts, and crises that face us personally and as a community.  It just gets to be overwhelming!”  People of God, there is no avoiding this stuff, but actually there is no growth without moments of conflict and crises because they are occasions in which we can grow. Indeed, experiencing crises is a necessary way to grow because it is  the breath of prayer that sustains us as we navigate these troubled waters.  We grow in faith as we learn to pray, which helps us to deal with life’s challenges.  More to it, prayer reminds us that we are not alone; that we are part of a Body, the mystical Body of Christ, the Church, whose arms are raised day and night to heaven, thanks to the presence, not of Aaron or Hur, but of the Risen Christ and his Holy Spirit.  Only in them can we maintain faith and witness. 

The prophet Ezekiel reminds us that what the Lord promises, he does

 (cf. Ez 12:25,28).  Given that, we pay attention to the promise Jesus makes in the Gospel: “God will grant justice to his chosen ones, who cry to him day and night” (Lk 18:7).  Church, this is the mystery of prayer: to keep crying out, not to lose heart, and if we should grow tired, asking help to keep our hands raised.”  This is the prayer that our Lord Jesus has revealed to us and why he has given to us the Holy Spirit.  To pray is not to take refuge in an utopia, which in the Greek, means “nowhere”; nor is it a means to escape to a spiritualized zone where we curl up in false, selfish sense of calm.  On the contrary, to pray is to struggle;  but, if we let the Holy Spirit pray within us, then God can do awesome things within us.  We can be the conduits of his divine power which can transform and renew the world.  Indeed, it is the Holy Spirit that teaches us how to pray.  He guides us in prayer and he enables us to pray as daughters and sons of our heavenly Father.  We are challenged to pray always and not lose heart.  And, as a community we say: AMEN!