In the book, “What is the Point of Being a Christian?” by Father Timothy Radcliffe, the former Master General of the Dominicans, a story is recounted of a pious and God-fearing town in the Deep South of the United States where everyone was good and went to church. And then one day, a man arrived and opened a bar which became the focus for all sorts of wild behavior: drinking and wild dancing. All the good Christians prayed that the bar would be closed. They besieged heaven and, sure enough, six months later the bar burnt down. The bar owner demanded compensation from the Christians. The Christians denied that they were responsible. What had they done? The bar owner replied, “Am I the only one in this place who believes in the power of prayer?”
In the gospel this Sunday, Jesus cannot emphasize more emphatically and clearly the
importance and power of prayer using the story of the insistent widow. If the unjust judge, who was inconsiderate, insensitive and corrupt, changed his mind and gave in to the pleadings of the poor widow, how much more our God, who is all good and compassionate, would not hear and respond to our pleadings before Him. In another passage in the Gospel – in the Gospel of Matthew— Jesus exhorts us “ask, and you shall receive, seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened to you.” But to think about it, why ask God if God already knows what we want? If He is truly God, then He must know everything already, right? Human history and our own unique lives are not just predestined plots which grind on towards their end regardless of us. We are God’s children, and so we are involved in the realization of his will. When we pray for justice, for example, and receive it in accordance to our prayers, we participate actively in making God’s will possible. Our prayers are not attempts to twist God’s arm, but rather through them we are involved in God’s providential government of the world. We are not like robots – being keyed in by God, directing us where we need to go—God has given us the free will to choose and participate in realizing our greatest potentials. Our way to communicate what we want to happen and what we want to achieve is through our prayers—. prayer is our lifeline to God! I have been emphasizing in my homilies that everything that we do here is all about relationship – our relationship with God and our relationship with others. This desire to grow in our relationship can’t possibly happen without prayer. Just like it is impossible to keep a human relationship going – like friendship or marriage—without sound and honest communication, our relationship with God cannot grow if we don’t have constant and regular communication with Him through prayers. In my short experience in marriage counseling, lack of communication is always the primary reason for disagreements, which at times will result in separation and divorce. This is the same dynamics with our relationship with God.
But what if, despite all the energy, all the asking, all the searching and even hammering on the door of heaven, nothing still happens? St Augustine once said that God sometimes holds back in order to teach us to desire more. He said that, “the whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire.” We are like bags that need to be stretched to become big enough for what God wishes to give us. When I was growing up, my Mom used to reject my request for potato chips and chocolates before dinner so that I would be able to enjoy the main meal which, of course, was healthier than the chips and chocolates. In the same way, by delaying the fulfillment of our desires, God stretches us by making us desire more; he expands the soul, and by this expansion, he increases its capacity.
Looking at our unique prayer life, what is the quality of our prayers? How spontaneous are we? Do we find ourselves doing more of the talking, or do we also allow God to communicate to us in silence?
– Fr. Cary