Persistence in prayer

Sunday, October 16, 2016 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time First Reading: Ex 17:8-13 Second Reading: 2 Tim 3:14–4:2 Gospel Reading: Lk 18:1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should pray continually and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor people. In the same town was a widow who kept coming to him, saying: ‘Defend my rights against my opponent.’ For a time he refused, but finally he thought: ‘Even though I neither fear God nor care about people, this widow bothers me so much I will see that she gets justice; then she will stop coming and wearing me out.”

And Jesus explained, “Listen to what the evil judge says. Will God not do justice for his chosen ones who cry to him day and night even if he delays in answering them? I tell you, he will speedily do them justice. Yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)

What is left of the Jerusalem Temple is the lower part of its original wall. Jews ritualize their sorrow for the Temple’s destruction by pressing their foreheads against this wall. Some cry and even wail, which is why this wall is also called the “Wailing Wall”. I stood before this wall twice in two visits to the Holy Land. In one of these visits I cried real tears while pressing my forehead against it. I felt that like the Jews I too have not been grateful enough to the Lord for the many gifts I have received in life.

Suddenly someone approached me and said, “I am collecting some dollars for the crying wall.”

“How much do I have to pay?” I asked. “It depends on how many minutes you have been praying here”, the Jew replied in broken English. Honestly I remembered the joke about an idiot who was fined by a corrupt policeman for counting electric posts at the plaza. According to the joke the idiot paid for twenty posts and jeered after the policeman had left because he had actually counted 50. Should I lie about how many minutes I had been standing against that wall and pay the corresponding penalty?

God asks us to be persistent in prayer. But if prayer had a price tag only the rich could afford to pray as often as God wants his children to. Thank God, prayer is for free. Sadly, people do not pray as often as they should. They pray only when pinned to the wall. I sort of pinned myself to the Wailing Wall asking for forgiveness and I was charged an exorbitant fee. If you were in my shoes, would you pay? The more important question to the wise: how much are they willing to pay to pray if prayer had a price? –(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MMExM, MAPM, REB. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.

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