Judge and widow

Persistent prayer is a school of trust.

In Lourdes, Fatima, Loretto, but also in many other pilgrimage places around the world and around the Marian chapels in small towns and villages around the world, there are a number of tables with the short words “Thanks!”, “Thanks for hearing” … The chapels on the well-known Bratislava Deep Road are formed by tables of long walls and a whole book about interesting fates has been published. They are a manifestation of faith and proof that God will listen to those who ask Him with confidence.

In Ephesus, like Jerusalem, where the Wailing Wall is known, there are huge walls with written requests. They talk more about urgent human needs. However, it would be interesting to see what wall would be needed in order to attach tables with unheard requests. I do not want to blaspheme, but there would probably be a disproportionate number. Unheard prayer is a difficult question. It often resonates already in the biblical psalms. For this reason, Saint Augustine responds with a verbal toy: “Mali, mala, male petimus – evil (we), please be evil and bad.” This is only a partial answer. Innocent in bombed cities, a mother begging for her child at risk, a man seeking faith begging for a sincere, fervent and good cause. And the Father, who loves his children, is still silent for years. Is this just a test of endurance?

Saint Augustine points to a deeper reason. If God does not respond immediately to our need, it causes us to need him for a longer time, to turn to him for a longer time, and to get closer to him. Often so much that we will gradually understand how it was better for us if God did not immediately hear us. The greatest gift is not the thing we asked for, but the God we have come to know. Something similar to my friend’s experience. During repeated handling of his business affair, he met his future wife in the clerk he met. She has been living with her happily for decades and is very grateful that the agenda was not resolved while you wait.

By the parable of the Judge and the Widow, in which the Teacher uses the game of contrast, Jesus wants to underline “how to keep praying and not fainting”, to encourage us to perseverance. And this is just one of the basic features of prayer. Perseverance, however, does not mean constantly repeating the same thing. It is a time of dialogue, asking God’s will, surrendering to his providential decisions. Perseverance is the growth of trust, the recognition and recognition that God’s thoughts are different from our thoughts. Even in everyday life, waiting for the results of a medical examination, answering a job application or other serious decision, we ask ourselves fundamental questions, consider alternatives to what we do. All the more so it is necessary to do it in constant prayer.

Elsewhere in the Gospel of Luke, following the challenge of “Seek and find, knock and open to you” and assure that if a son asks his father for a fish he will not give him a snake, Jesus adds interesting and keywords: Yes, the prayer of prayer should be specific, we should put in it what pushes us, but it should also be given and begging for the gift of the Holy Spirit, the “Giver of all gifts”, which will help us to know and receive God the will, want what God wants, and he himself will make our prayers to God. But there is only one way to learn persistent and surrendered prayer: if we pray with confidence and perseverance.