Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
We can become so easily discouraged in prayer. We pray, sometimes for quite desperate things, and it seems like God does not hear, or God does not answer. But Jesus gives us a parable today that illustrates the faith with which we must pray. For if the dishonest judge would attend to the woman’s case for fear of her anger and the inconvenience to himself, how much more will a God who loves us as His own children attend to our prayers? Jesus says elsewhere “Ask and it will be given to you…If you, then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him,” (Matthew 7:7, 11)?
We are not mere clients of an indifferent judge; surely we must pray with persistence but we must also pray with faith, clinging to our identity as children of God, trusting that if we would not ignore the needs and desires of our own children, why would God ignore us, or disregard our pleas? “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them?”
Pray: you have a Father who loves you and is listening.