<p> Parable of the Dishonest Judge Jesus teaching his disciples, and through this Gospel teaching us the necessity of praying always, without growing weary -- I believe it is encouragement we can all use, to be sure. Parables are a great way to teach. They stir us into thinking, meditating, pondering. They draw us in, then lead us to see the world through a different set of eyes. But we need to search out the key point, and not be led off track by colorful details meant to draw us in, to pique interest or to add humor. An unjust judge, worn out, afraid some widow is so persistent she may punch him out – we are supposed to laugh at the thought. Picturing how the widow nags him is colorful as well. But please don’t go home concluding that God is like the dishonest judge in the parable, uninterested in our concerns, or that we have to nag and wear God down in order to get an answer to prayer. Who wants to be a nag? Persistence is the message, the introduction tells us that. But in addition to encouraging us to persist in prayer, the Spirit led me to another place through the parable. After hearing the parable, we get a sense that we know something about the widow, and in a way, we also get to know the judge a bit. Why do we need to persist in prayer? To stay with it? Not to wear down a God who doesn’t know what we need. God knows before we ask. Making prayer a priority, persisting, going back to God in prayer even when it seems we are getting no where is the way we truly discover more about ourselves. At the same time, it is how come to first know God better, then we come to love God, and over time, we can come to union, to walking with God. I love the way St. Theresa, or in our own day, spiritual writers like Fr. Thomas Green or others speak of pray-ers as friends of God. Prayer is the way we grow in friendship with the Lord. Just as our human friendships take time to grow, and require that we stay with it, so too with God. Let me share this some praying stories from this week. Among the conversations I’ve had this week, one was with a person who is terminally ill, wrestling with what the illness means, with how to pray under the circumstances, with reconnecting to church, and with how to be at peace with God. A couple of other conversations were with folks who deeply love someone who is terminally ill. Similar questions: Why? What does this mean? How do I pray? What do I do with my anger at God that my loved one is suffering? How do I stay with Jesus through it all, and not push him away, out of anger I can’t seem to control? I want to stay with Jesus on this journey! I believe sharing with you what I shared with those I spoke with this week may help us get at this ‘getting to know God’ fruit of prayer, and in the knowing, we may be led to a deeper love of God as well. First, let me say that everyone has a way in which they cope with the challenges of life. We all have ways to make sense of what life throws at us. I would never want to take away someone’s way of making sense of life if it is truly working for them. So if the first end of a spectrum I am about to describe is where you are, and it is truly working for you, God bless you – hang on to God right there, until the Spirit leads you elsewhere. If it isn’t working, consider letting God reveal a different face to you. At one end of the spectrum, some people make sense of everything that happens in life by saying ‘it is all God’s will’. If I am walking down the sidewalk, and like in a Geico ad, someone pushes a safe out of a window and it lands on me, that must be God’s will. If I am hit by a drunken driver, God must have willed the driver to have a few extra drinks, and willed the accident. Besides leading to an image of a God who seems heartless, this outlook seems to deny that God chose to give us freedom. We believe that God did give us freedom. That impacts how we understand God’s will, and the things that happen in this world. At any rate, let’s say that ‘everything that happens was directly willed by God’ is one end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who just say ‘it is what it is’. Things happen. There is no God, or if there is, God doesn’t have any control over the good or the evil in the world, or chooses not to get involved. If that is true … one could conclude prayer is a waste of time. Unfortunately many folks do draw that conclusion. But friends, there is a ton of space between those two ends of the spectrum. So here is my feeble attempt to name a perspective somewhere between those extremes. If you are a parent, or if you have a dear friend, you love them with all your heart. Bring someone to mind right now…………. ……………You want what is best for this person you love. If you could, you would protect them from hurt, or evil, illness, or any catastrophe. But the truth is, we can’t protect anyone from everything forever. Someone else may use the freedom God gave to hurt, let’s say, your son or daughter. Or that person we love may become ill, through no one’s fault – illness in the world may be what St. Paul meant when he spoke of all creation being in labor, and groaning toward salvation. While we can’t protect and prevent every harm in the life of those we love, should some tragedy come along, our love, our standing by them, the way we support them take away some of the sting, ease the hurt. Not only that; it may even be possible that despite the hurt or harm, we can help bring a blessing out of it through the way we love and support that person so dear to us. With me so far? I do not believe that every hardship and all suffering is directly and specifically willed by God, as if that is the only way God can find to bring us blessings, growth and goodness. It is true, as Paul says in Romans, that ‘suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope’. But the God I meet in prayer has many ways to lead us to blessings and new life, including healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation, not just suffering. I believe that God, far beyond the best any parent can ever manage, can love us in our worst problems, hardships or disasters so much that grace can flow, and even if the hurt is still there, it begins to heal. Illness can be healed through love and prayer, and even if the illness isn’t cured, the person and those who love that dear one can begin to find peace and eventually even blessings. Keep in mind, this is not because the illness was the only path to that peace and those blessings. Such an understanding would mean that we are praying to a God who keeps busy inflicting pain. Rather than getting bogged down sorting out cause and effect, the answer lies in the mysterious power of redemptive love. Love can transform pain into a path to life. We celebrate that power ever time we gather at the altar. We look at a cross, and know that through divine love, the cross gave way to resurrection. It is the paschal mystery, which we struggle to understand and embrace our whole life. Given the worst possible starting point, when we open the door to God in prayer, God will always lead toward new life. Back to my good parent analogy …. So the kid gets in deep trouble. If he or she calls for help, mom or dad may not be able to reverse the clock, to make it all go away; they shouldn’t try to. But their support and love changes everything. Love creates a different path than hand wringing, or going it alone. However, if the kid never calls, mom or dad’s love never has a chance to do amazing things. I see the parable telling us to never stop opening the door, welcoming God into our life, allowing God to take us by the hand, and lead us through whatever lay before us, even through death to new life. Its called turning our life over to God. It is throwing open wide the door of grace. When we intercede for others, we are also opening the door, inviting God to visit those we bring to the Lord in prayer. Recall the story in the Gospel with the paralyzed man, who couldn’t get to Jesus because of the crowd around the door? His friends got him up on the roof, opened the roof and lowered him before Jesus. When we intercede for others, we are those friends. In light of these readings about prayer, let me conclude with a little change in how we will go about things during the prayer of the faithful. In some parishes, during the prayer of the faithful, during the petition praying for those who are ill, those in the congregation are invited to quietly mention the name of anyone especially on their mind who is sick. We won’t be saying the name loudly, for the whole congregation to hear, any more than a person in the confessional shouts out their sins for all to hear. But just as confessing our sins, even softly, opens a door to grace, so our mentioning a loved ones name helps the process of praying to be more personal. Speaking a name in love can be a prayer in and of itself. I think you will discover what I mean if you give it a try. To wrap it all up: Lord, teach us to pray without growing weary.</p>