Saturday, November 18, 2017 32nd Week in
Ordinary Time 1st
Reading: Wis 18:14-16; 19:6-9 Gospel: Luke 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)
A sacristan reports to the priest about what appears to be a miracle happening inside the church. “Father,” he says, “a half-paralyzed man has just thrown away his crutches.” “My child, now you see how God works in a man who prays in patience and humility.” “But Father,” the sacristan explains, “the man is on the floor with broken nose, and he is angry with God.”
The paraplegic person in the foregoing story may, after praying so hard, have wanted to force God’s hands to heal him. But this partakes of coercion which, if done between humans, could be illegal. Yet today’s Gospel reading seems to suggest a persistent prayer that amounts to coercion. This kind of interpretation must be abandoned because it goes against the doctrine laid down in the “Our Father”.
This Model of all prayers requires that the person praying disposes himself to the Will of the Father.
The parable of the widow and the judge which today’s Gospel presents urges us to persist praying even when God appears to be playing deaf to our supplications. But in narrating this parable Jesus did not mean to teach people how to coerce God. The purpose is not to coerce God but to feel the need for God.
The more one insists praying over his need, the more he absorbs the reality that with God he can do nothing. That paraplegic man in the story above would have been in the best position at prayer with those crutches. Prayer should begin with self-acceptance because the acceptance of one’s miserable and wretched state deepens the need for a redeemer. This leads to true worship because by putting oneself at the right place below, a person enshrines God above – up to where God should be. Here is the core of worship, the heart of prayer. —(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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