Gospel reflection for July 27, 2025, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
“There are no atheists in foxholes” is an expression that was coined sometime during the Second World War. Its meaning is quite clear, and the truth it expresses is likewise very apparent. When we come to uncertainty, a significant challenge, or a time of great loss, turning to prayer becomes our knee-jerk response. Even people raised outside of a religious tradition find such occasions for even the most basic form of prayer. That through prayer lives can be transformed and the course of events altered is fundamental to our human experience. Absent revelation from God, even the most primitive societies engaged in ritualistic appeals and sacrifices to the forces that they understood, seeking relief, mercy, and healing. Likewise, they knew to offer sacrifices for praise and thanksgiving when their prayers were heard, and even when they were not.
A quick view through one’s digital calendar will note the designation of the religious holidays of Christians and Jews, along with Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists among others. Prayer and festivals around harvests, new moons, and the turn of the calendar, are common among all ancient religious traditions.
It was through the Law that Moses handed-down very specific formulae for prayer, sacrifice, and the celebration of various festivals for the ancient Israelites, and Jesus is seen referencing and observing these rituals in the Gospels.
That prayer is efficacious is a given. The difficulty for many of us, especially where we are free from the cultural pressures to practice, is that we lack the habit of prayer. Prayer is not merely a moment in our lives, it is the very rhythm of life itself.
The development of prayer hours — specific times of the day when we turn to prayer — is common in many religious traditions, including our own. This struck when on one occasion I was in a taxi in Cairo, Egypt, and as the muezzin sounded the call to salat (prayer) he stopped the cab, and got on the street to pray.
Jesus did not give his disciples specific instructions about when to pray. The earliest Christians followed the Jewish habits of daily prayer and festivals, gradually withdrawing from them and adding their own. Saint Benedict, with the establishment of his rule (c 530) codified such prayer times for the monks, and five daily prayers (the Divine Office) are mandated for priests.
What Jesus does ask of his disciples is persistence in prayer. In this way we are developing a relationship with the Lord, and engaging in the conversation of prayer. When prayer becomes merely a checklist of things to do, or primarily on those occasions when I need to pray (facing a crisis or being there when others are praying) we do not feel as connected because we have no relationship with the Lord.
Developing the habit of prayer is essential to the life of the Catholic. Our church offers us a long tradition of prayers and litanies that help us to form the pattern and the habit of prayer. A simple prayer before a meal, a short examen before retiring for the night, and a prayer of thanksgiving and hope upon awakening, are poignant ways in which we can begin to punctuate our life with prayer. For many, the frequent recitation of the Rosary draws them into a deeper contemplation of the great mysteries of our faith.
We pray, not to change God’s mind, but to conform our lives to his will, and to come to see the world through God’s eyes and not our own. This is a daunting task, one that takes great courage and time to accomplish. Prayer is a life journey, and not a moment of a day.
We see this transformative view in the conversation between Abraham and God as God discusses with Abraham the fate of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. God taught Abraham mercy by allowing Abraham to understand mercy through God’s own eyes. Perhaps the cities would have been spared, had Abraham continued to be persistent in his appeal to God.
Jesus taught his disciples to call God Abba (Daddy) and to appeal to him as such. Let our prayer be persistent, faithful, and ever desirous of entering into a deep personal relationship with the Lord.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.