Gospel: Luke 18:1-8
Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. “There was a judge in a certain town,” he said “who had neither fear of God nor respect for man. In the same town there was a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘Maybe I have neither fear of God nor respect for man, but since she keeps pestering me I must give this widow her just rights, or she will persist in coming and worry me to death.’” And the Lord said, “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?”
Homily
As we come to the end of the Year of Faith, the Gospel passage given to us today for our meditation reminds us of one of the prime ingredients of faith. It is perseverance in the face of tremendous odds. It is not simply perseverance itself, for all of us persevere in seeking the things we want badly enough. At times we even persevere in seeking sinful things. We persevere in sinful relationships, we persevere in seeking comfort, we persevere in hoarding money while others go hungry. This, however, is another type of perseverance. It is the perseverance of a poor widow who has nothing, and it is the perseverance in her quest for justice [We must always understand justice as the proper ordering of things] because she believes in the power of right over wrong.
The widow is poor. She cannot back her claims with money or influential people; her power lies entirely in her moral qualities, her passion and her perseverance because she has faith that justice will finally be hers. It is this belief which fuels her perseverance and this perseverance causes the unjust judge to finally give her redress.
The Gospel calls us to celebrate the poor people in our communities who are extraordinarily courageous in “seeking justice against their enemies” firm in their belief that right eventually trumps wrong. For them justice takes many forms: It may be getting their children into a good school, or keeping them in school after they have done something very wrong. It may be finding jobs for them after they have left school, or finding money for their children’s food or education, or completing their homes.
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The Gospel also calls us to celebrate the great people of our world who persevered in the face of great danger and with no resources except their passion for justice, and their perseverance.
We celebrate and we thank God for Mons. Romero in el Salvador, for Martin Luther King in the southern United States, for Ghandi in India and for Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
They persevered with passion in seeking a better order for their countries and the world, in spite of prison and guns trained against them. We thank God for these examples of passion for justice and for courage and perseverance in seeking it. We remember St. Monica who persevered in prayer for nineteen years, praying for the conversion of her son, Augustine.
There are many poor widows in our society today, people and groups who seek justice with passion and perseverance. The Gospel calls us today, not to be sorry for these poor widows, but to learn from them. We must capture their spirit, and we do that by joining them in the struggle for justice. There are many NGO’s in our country, many groups struggling for justice without any resources. We must join them and become transformed by their spirit so that we too may seek justice with passion and perseverance
But we are people of faith, and the passion and perseverance of these exemplars must be translated into our relationship with God. We must be able to storm heaven with perseverance, secure in our knowledge that God will indeed make all things new. It may take time because God depends on us weak human beings. All things will be made new however and when it does happen, like the woman who does not remember the pain of childbirth for her joy of seeing her child born, so too we will rejoice that justice has indeed come to us.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, we thank you for the many examples of people of faith who persevere in seeking your Kingdom and the good of their brothers and sisters in spite of tremendous odds. Help us your people to believe that you will be faithful to your promises, that eventually right will triumph over wrong, that the New Jerusalem will be a reality. Help us Father to portray in our own lives the hope which sustains us in the struggle. We ask this through the intercession of Mary our mother and your son, Jesus. Amen
