As Catholics we have certain formulas of prayer that help us to focus our attention on the mysteries of our faith. At some point we all experience a need for a more personal encounter with God. 

What do you pray for? There are many different ways to consider the question. Most of us pray for something -- hoping either that it will happen or that it won’t happen. Our prayer often takes on a sense of urgency or desperation, especially as we anticipate something. This sort of prayer becomes an exchange of need and not of an intimate relationship with God. We take certain needs, feelings, experiences and thanksgiving to God, but often we can be either fearful, or even doubtful, about the efficacy of that prayer. Sometimes we lose heart, especially when it seems that our prayers have gone unanswered. 

Jesus addresses the question as to the efficacy of prayer. After having spoken to his disciples about the coming of the kingdom of God, Jesus tells them a parable. The main character in the parable is a poor aggrieved widow who is seeking justice in the legal system. When we think of any judicial system we are focused, as were the ancients, on judgment, punishment and retribution. This remains our expectations of the legal system. 

Jesus has been emphasizing mercy in this section of parables and teaching in Luke’s Gospel. The same is certainly true here. This widow seeks justice from an unjust and disinterested judge. It is through her persistence that she turns his hardened heart toward her. 

While many intentions cross our minds every day, the Scriptures draw our focus in prayer to matters of justice. We might prefer to focus on health, well-being or the protection of our families, but there seems to be a point where the question of justice and God’s mercy should be paramount in our lives. 

Perhaps it was due to the Jewish people focusing on the problem of sin and its effects in the lives of individuals and families that drew their attention more to mercy and judgment than it did for specific needs. So, where you or I might pray for someone’s health, the Jewish people were more inclined to pray that whatever sin afflicted someone might be forgiven so that he or she could be restored to health.

Often, when we think of justice we do so in social terms. We think of fair retribution, a just reward, or the exacting of some punishment. We both pray to God for justice and at the same time God demands us to be just. What we seek from God, God also seeks from us.  

Jesus calls us to persistence in prayer and in seeking mercy from the Lord. 

There is a sense in this parable where God is both imaged as the judge and as the woman. God seeks us, even the most hardened of hearts, with constancy and persistence. Each one of us has those moments in life – the death of loved ones, brushes with illness, growth in wisdom – that call us to examine, if ever so briefly, our lives and our destinies. It is that moment in which God the persistent widow cries out to us, the unjust judge, for attention and conversion.

In this sense God sides with the poor, with the marginalized, and the abused. They need justice, and God hammers our consciences and our hearts to be open, to be compassionate, to be just. 

At other times in life we bang on Heaven’s door, when we are pleading with God for the conversion of a loved one, for health, healing and mercy. There are times when we wonder if anyone is still listening and yet we must be persistent. God works within God’s time not ours. Growth in faith requires a strengthening in faith through persistence. It isn’t something we just get we need to nurture and develop our faith.

It will be through our persistence and the continual moments of conversion in faith that will enable us to respond to the returning Christ – indeed there is much faith on the earth!

Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.