Ordinary Time 29th Sun C

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading 1  EX 17:8-13
Responsorial Psalm  PS 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
Reading 2  2 TM 3:14-4:2
Gospel  LK 18:1-8

            Some of the most dangerous moments for our faith can be when we seem to ourselves to be at our strongest. We become confident that we are on the right track. We pray more. We pray for a sick friend or family member, we pray for the conversion of those close to us. We pray for the grace to overcome our temptations, to overcome our habitual, sinful practices that lead us away from God. And then nothing seems to happen. Our sick friend or family member dies. Those whose conversion we were praying for instead seem to become ever more consumed by sinful actions. We keep falling into the same temptations over and over again, with no sign of improvement. It makes it hard to keep our faith, and we start to question it.
 
            This is the moment when the lesson from today’s Gospel kicks in. Luke specifies that the parable Jesus tells is a parable about the need to “pray continually and never lose heart.” So, it is precisely in these moments, as our faith begins to wane because we perceive that God has not acted according to what we think is just, that we have to turn to Him even more. It is in these moments, that we must approach his presence more than ever. It is these moments that have the potential to be turning points in our lives: towards salvation or damnation.
 
            The widow in the Gospel gives an example of this. She needs a particular ruling from a judge: a judge who has no desire for justice, who has no interest in doing the right thing. He is not concerned for his eternal soul because he has no fear of God, and he has no interest in doing justice on earth because he has no respect for man. Nevertheless, because the widow continually pesters the judge about her petition, because she keeps pointing out to this wicked judge what justice demands, it is eventually done. As Luke points out to us, God is not wicked. He most certainly does have respect for man, for every man. He is perfectly just. So, when we cry out to him day and night, continually, he will help us, he will do justice for us.
 
            But this does not mean that we are in control of Him. What He does is done in His time, and in His way, not in ours. The healing that we pray for may not happen. But the resurrection of the dead, far beyond the healing we were praying for, does happen. The conversion of our friends and family may not happen immediately, but God’s gift of grace for them, and his invitation to allow them to cooperate with Him is given, never overriding free will but giving it what it needs to turn to God. The healing of our own sins may not happen immediately, but if we persevere in prayer: if we remain in God’s sight all the days of our life: if we have prayed continually, he will clean us of them and give us eternal life. Prayer is not a magic trick that we perform: it’s not an automatic formula or a deal we make with God. It isn’t something we give Him in exchange for Him giving us something we ask for. Instead prayer is fundamentally a loving gaze on God: always being conscious of being in God’s presence. This is called contemplation, the highest form of prayer, something all of us are called to. This is what we must do continually, as the Gospel tells us.
 
            Contemplation, however, is not something we acquire entirely on our own. Lifting our hearts up to God, like Moses lifting up his arms during the battle against the Amalekites, requires outside support. This outside support for us comes through Jesus Christ, and through his Body, the new People of God, the Church. The two people mentioned as supporting Moses’ arms are Aaron: his brother who God chose to speak for Moses before the people, and who was the first high priest, and Hur, a member of the tribe of Judah who tradition tells us was the grandfather of the man who built the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle that would house it during the journey through the desert. All three: Moses, Aaron and Hur, are involved in bringing God’s revelation to the people of Israel: Moses speaks to God, Aaron communicates that message to the people, and offers sacrifices on behalf of the people as the first High Priest, and Hur’s grandson builds God’s house on Earth. These roles are all taken by Jesus Christ, and therefore participated in by the Church: Jesus is the unique revelation of God, given to us by tradition and Scripture; through Him, the new High Priest, we offer His sacrifice on behalf of all of us in the Mass, and by His grace, we are built into a tabernacle, into an Ark capable of carrying the New Covenant: capable of communion with God, capable of contemplation, of praying continually.
 
            Dei Verbum, the document from the second Vatican council on Divine Revelation, tells us that this revelation, tells us that Jesus Christ Himself, whose body we are made into through contemplation, is communicated to us in two ways: through tradition and Scripture. This is what St. Paul tells Timothy in our second reading: to keep to what he has been taught by his teachers: to keep to the traditions inherited through the Church, the doctrines taught to him by the Apostles, and guarded by Timothy and the other successors of the Apostles, and to keep what has been learned through the holy scriptures: the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Through these two means, we receive Jesus Christ, and therefore God. Not only do we receive God, but we become transformed by Him, we become like Him, able to see from His perspective.
 
            Like with the Israelites, this transformative uplifting of ourselves to God allows us to be successful in our actions. Success in this case, however, does not mean that we control God to do our will, but rather that we will remain in communion with Him and do His will. This does not make us passive. On the contrary, in addition to being like Moses, keeping our hearts lifted towards God, we must also be like Joshua, engaging in spiritual battle for God’s kingdom. Unlike the wicked judge, we must do justice to others, not just because they pester us about it, but out of fear of God: out of keeping his presence always before us and being transformed by Him, and out of respect for man, out of a renewed love that sees all human relationships from God’s point of view. This puts into context everything we ask for. When we ask for justice in the presence of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, it will be granted to us. But our reception of it, or at least our acknowledgement of that reception is dependent on keeping God always on our hearts.