October 20, 2013
29th Sunday Ordinary Time
C
Persistent Widow
There was a boy who wanted to have a
bicycle. He went to the church to pray and ask Jesus for a bicycle. After one
day, he did not receive a bike, so he went again to the church to pray. Again after a day, he still did not receive a
bike so he went again to church and prayed for the third time. But still he did not receive a bicycle a week
later. Feeling a bit sad of what happened,
he went again to the church. The
following day, there was a commotion inside the church. The Sacristan discovered that the statue of
the blessed mother is missing. They
search the whole church but found nothing except the small piece of paper that
was place right where the Blessed Mother was place. It was written in the paper
“Dear Jesus, if you want to see your
mother again, please give me a bike.”
It is sad to say that many of us
today are like this child. We live today in a world that give us a quick answer
for everything we need. Everything around us is instant. Instant coffee,
instant mami, instant noodles, instant cash. Smart phone helps us to
communicate anywhere in the world with just a touch of a button. We can now buy
items with a touch of our computer keyboard without going to store. Our postal
mails are gradually overtaken by email which is faster. We want to do all
things with a little time to spend. We treat also prayer just like an ATM
machine that dispenses cash anytime we want. This world of mobility has shaped
us to become an impatient people.
In our Gospel today, we can find two characters from real
life: a judge who neither respects God nor persons, and a widow who will not
stop fighting for her rights before the judge. The judge was portrayed as an
insensitive and irreligious; while the widow was portrayed as persistent and knows
which door to knock on to get what is owed to her. For a long time, she was asking
the same thing every day, but gets nothing from the insensitive judge. At the
end, the judge, even though “he had neither fear of God nor respect for man”
decided to pay attention to the widow and give her justice. This is a fact of
daily life and Jesus uses it to teach us how to pray.
Jesus wants us to have the courage to wait, to be patient
in our prayer even if sometimes God doesn’t seem to hear us. Jesus knows that we
pray for many good things that don’t seem to come our way in the time we
expect. Some of us who pray are tempted to think either God does not care, or
that there is no God to pray to. It is true that sometimes we are very
impatient in our prayer. We want God to
act according to what we want. When we
prayer, we expect an immediate result and most of the time we are disappointed.
I always feel bad every time I hear people left there catholic faith because
they think that their prayer were unanswered.
The widow in our Gospel today reminds us that her persistent and persevering attitude she finally gets what she want. Jesus reminds us that God does care, and that in God’s own time he acts. He acts according to his own will and not according to what we want. Our part is not to give up praying, not give up trusting.
MANGYARI NAWA
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