“When peaceful stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all powerful word from heaven’s royal throne bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land, bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree. And as he alighted, he filled every place with death; he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth.”
These words of poetry are just awesome even if the subject matter does not appear to be so when you first read it. There are many other types of literary forms that are found in the bible too, such as prose narratives, lyrics, ballads, tragedies, chronicles, fictitious lawsuits, orations, philosophical meditations, and prayers and letters. But today’s first reading from the book of Wisdom is sheer poetry.
The second half of the first reading today gives an awesome account of the Israelites exodus from Egypt, and God’s parting of the Red Sea, that delivered them from slavery. It ends by saying that they left “praising you, O Lord! their deliverer.” The Israelites without a doubt spent their whole life praying to be delivered from slavery. Generations of people would have prayed for this same thing, freedom from the Egyptians. It makes you wonder why God took so long to answer their prayers? Many people might have lost heart or even lost their faith, because their prayers were not answered. Could one of the reasons have been that He did attempt to answer their prayers but no one could hear His voice calling them? Moses did listen to God calling him to the mountain the first time, but he lived in stillness and quiet among the sheep as a shepherd, and was not distracted by the toil and stress of being a slave. Shepherds are frequently mentioned throughout the bible and there is a very good reason for that. They lived in quiet, peaceful stillness among the sheep, without many stresses and distractions and could therefore hear God calling them in the depths of their hearts. They trusted His voice enough to answer and so did Moses.
Jesus said in today’s gospel, “But when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?”
The kind of faith that Jesus is talking about is born from prayer. Our prayer life is where faith is found and if we do not have a good prayer life, our faith suffers. All our struggles should be brought to the Lord in prayer, even when we struggle with a lack of faith. It is precisely in those moments that we actually do have a strong faith in the Lord. The saints mention that Jesus is nearest to us when we feel the furthest away and yet make an effort to pray anyway. It is a trial that does not go unnoticed by the Lord.
Speaking of trials … the widow in today’s gospel kept pestering the judge to render her a just decision. She repeatedly bugged him until he did so. Jesus praised the widow for her perseverance and tells us that God is like that too. We should keep praying and not give up because we are God’s chosen people and He will hear our prayers and see to it that justice is done. That’s what happened to the Israelites too, when they were delivered from slavery.
There is something that could be easily missed about the widow in today’s gospel though. It is important to pay attention to, because the widow did not just stay at home and pray. That’s really a big thing to remember because so many people say that they pray, and pray, and pray and it seems like God isn’t hearing their prayers, but you can’t help but wonder what they are actually doing about it? We expect God to take an action, but are we trying too? Or are we simply waiting for God to do it for us? Have you ever heard the expression that “God helps those most, who help themselves?”
Perhaps the widow’s prayers is what kept her motivated to continue bugging the judge. Maybe God noticed her efforts and her prayers and realized she was serious about it and wasn’t going to give up pestering the judge and so He decided to help her out by sending extra graces to change the judge’s heart. Human beings are like that too. If you see someone who needs help and they are doing everything they can to help themselves, you are a lot more likely to step in an assist them. But, if someone keeps asking you for something and yet they are unwilling to do anything about it themselves, then it seems like they are expecting you to do the whole thing for them.
That’s a good thought for today. What have we actually done about the things we have been praying about lately? Is there any kind of concrete action we can take, that we haven’t already done? What have we tried? If there really isn’t anything else we can do, then consistency in praying for what we need is even more important. The widow in today’s gospel sets the example in never giving up!
