Pray Always! - Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

            I was blessed to grow up with my Grandma Gallo living with our family. Her married name notwithstanding, Gram was an Irish lass through and through—she laughed easily, worked hard, and relaxed best with a cold beer in hand. I remember Gram catching turtles for us at a nearby golf course, tending to her beloved roses in the garden, and faking a scream, to her grandchildren’s delight, at the sight of a worm. Gram was a lot of fun—then Alzheimer’s disease stole her away from us. Well-after she lost her memories and the ability to engage in meaningful conversation, it amazed me that Gram still prayed the Mass like a pro. Eighty-some years of faithful Mass attendance no doubt etched those prayers into nooks and crannies of her mind so deep that even Alzheimer’s had trouble finding them. Grandma Gallo prayed always. She was a great example of persistent prayer, the kind of prayer we’re called to in today’s readings.

I struggle with Jesus’ call to “pray always.” We pray after senseless shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters, but nothing seems to change. Right here, in our own community, we’re losing our young people to drug addiction and mental illness, we watch helplessly as our loved ones fade before our eyes in the grips insidious illnesses like cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia, and our friends are dying much too suddenly and much too young. We pray always—we offer intercessory prayers at Mass, we form prayer chains, and we add names upon names, known and unknown, to our daily prayer lists, but our cries all too often seem to be met with silence. We lift up our eyes toward the mountains and wonder, “Who will help us?”  We grow weary, frustrated, even angry, and we lose faith.

Yet, persistence in faith and prayer is the consistent message of today’s readings. When Moses prays over the Israelite army, they prevail in battle; when he grows weary, they falter. In prayer, our psalmist finds help in the Lord who made heaven and earth. Saint Paul encourages Timothy to remain faithful, whether it’s convenient or inconvenient. And Luke’s introduction to our Gospel “leaves no doubt regarding the point of the parable: the disciples’ need to ‘pray always and not lose heart.’”[1] The message is so strong that we have to ask, “What’s so important about prayer?” 

 

Prayer is the elevation of the mind and heart to God.[2]  In prayer, we place our deepest longings, our profound gratitude, our darkest fears, and our highest hopes before God, trusting that, in his divine providence, “All will be well.”[3] But all isn’t well, or at least it doesn’t seem to be. We don’t always get what we want in prayer, and sometimes we get exactly what we don’t want. And yet, Jesus still tells us to “pray always.”  

            This challenge of prayer is one of perspective. We may think we know what’s best for us or for others, but we may not. We’re creatures living within our Creator’s vast plan to make all well. From our lowly vantage point, we can’t see the whole plan, but God can. Think of it this way: when we search for a destination on Google Maps, we get a pin-point location on a zoomed-in map. That’s the human perspective. If we want to know the mountains and plains, the hills and valleys we need to cross to get there, we have to zoom out. That’s God’s perspective. God sees the whole picture—the whole plan. Only God knows the best way to our final destination, so Jesus’ call to pray always is also a call to trust God always. God’s in the driver’s seat. We have to trust that God loves us, that God wants only what’s best for us, and that God knows the way.  

            So if it’s all in God’s hands, why bother praying at all? Our prayers don’t change God’s mind. God’s mind doesn’t need changing. The divine plan was perfect from the get-go. We pray because in prayer, we grow in communion with God, and “in the course of growing in communion with God, we become more closely aligned with [God].”[4] Prayer builds our trust in God by reminding us that we rely on God for everything that matters. Prayer helps us see that “God can squeeze a blessing out of even the worst of injustices.”[5] Prayer gives us the calm assurance that “in every moment of our lives, from the most blessed to the most excruciating, God remains with us as a loving presence.”[6] Most of all, prayer helps us know in the depths of our hearts that God loves us - so much, that he sent his only Son to live with us, to pray with us, to weep and mourn with us, and to suffer and die for us so that we may share eternal life in him with the Father. 

Prayer, then, is an act of love. Jesus might just as well have said, “Love always without growing weary.” Praying to God is loving God.  Praying for others is loving our neighbors. Loving our neighbors is wanting whatever God knows is best for them, even when it may not be what we think is best for them. Every time we pray in earnest, God receives our prayer as a selfless act of love. Sometimes the specific words of our petitions may not express God’s plan perfectly, but our loving intent does. Each prayer builds God’s Kingdom here on earth, and the opportunity to experience the peace, happiness, and love of God’s Kingdom, even for a moment, is reason enough to pray always.

In her final months, Grandma Gallo was completely unresponsive. My mother’s visits consisted of little more than a prayer whispered in Gram’s ear and holding her hand. On March 3, 1990, the nursing home called Mom and told her that it was time to accompany Gram on her final journey. Gram’s breathing was labored, but she otherwise lay motionless in bed, as she had done for the past several months. Suddenly, Gram opened her eyes and stared intently toward my Uncle Bob, who stood at the foot of her bed. At first, they thought she recognized him, but as he moved closer alongside the bed, her gaze didn’t follow him. Her eyes were fixed on a vision unseen by earth-veiled eyes. Then she smiled—a big, bright smile that reignited the twinkle in her Irish eyes. She closed her eyes and breathed her last. You may interpret that moment any way you wish, but my family knows exactly what it was. It was God’s loving answer to all our prayers. Pray always! 

Readings:  Exodus 17: 8-13; Psalm 121: 1-8; 2 Timothy 3: 14-4: 2; Luke 18: 1-8 

 

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[1] M. Dennis Hamm, “Luke,” in The Paulist Biblical Commentary, ed. José Enrique Aguilar Chiu et al. (New York: Paulist Press, 2018), 1082.

[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 2559.

[3] Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. Edmund College and James Walsh (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978), 225.

[4] Jeffrey Cole, ed., The Didache Bible (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 1391n.

[5] Henry H. Mitchell, Celebration & Experience in Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008), chap. 8, Kindle.

[6] Chris Koellhoffer, “Beside us Always,” in Living Faith: Daily Catholic Devotions, ed. Terence Hegarty, vol. 35, no. 3, October 20, 2019.