My Reflection on Sunday’s Gospel Luke 18:1–8

John Bergsma gives us the context for this passage:

We are nearing the end of Luke’s “travel narrative,” and in two weeks, Jesus will be in Jericho, the eastern gateway to Judea, just a day’s walk from Jerusalem. As he nears the end of the journey, he teaches on prayer. Prayer will be so important in the dramatic events about to transpire in Passion Week: Jesus will pray all night in Gethsemane and urge his Apostles to do the same.[1]

I find it fascinating that often the parables Jesus tells are in response to a question he is asked, but in this case, he is preparing them to pray continuously and not to lose heart, “not to give up in the midst of evil.”[2]

CCC §2098: The acts of faith, hope, and charity enjoined by the first commandment are accomplished in prayer. Lifting up the mind toward God is an expression of our adoration of God: prayer of praise and thanksgiving, intercession and petition. Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God’s commandments. “[We] ought always to pray and not lose heart.”[3]

In this parable, Jesus sets up the characters of the unrighteous judge. A man whose priority is only himself as he neither respects God nor man. In contrast, we have the widow who is begging for justice against an adversary, somebody who is either persecuting her or withholding something she is owed.

One common thread and a component of social justice, as expounded by the Old Testament, is that the widow and others who are vulnerable are to be protected and cared for.

²² You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. ²³ If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, ²⁴ and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. (Ex 22:22–24, ESV-CE).

The unrighteous judge finally relents due only to her strong persistence.

Brant Pitre teases out an interesting element in the underlying language used:

Now the RSV says “wear me out”, but the Greek actually says, “lest she come” and the word here is hypopiazō, and the New American Bible gets this right. The New American Bible says “lest she come and strike me.” But the literal Greek actually “lest she come and give me a black eye.” That’s what hypopiazō means. It’s a boxing term. So Paul actually uses this elsewhere when he talks about boxing the air or shadowboxing, this imagery of punching. So she’s not the persistent widow, she’s the violent widow, and perhaps you’ve known some old ladies like this, who you don’t…you don’t want to mess with them. That’s the kind of woman that’s being described here. Basically, this judge is afraid that if he doesn’t give this woman a verdict, she’s going to come and do physical violence against him. She’s going to give him a black eye. [2]

This parable is also another example of a rhetorical technique Jesus uses here and in other places:

Jewish literature, and in later Rabbinic literature, was something called the qal-va-homer. It’s a Hebrew expression; it means “from the lesser to the greater.” In Latin, we talk about the a fortiori argument. In other words, it’s saying, if this is true for this lesser thing, then how much more true is it for the greater? [2]

We saw the usage of this in Luke 11, comparing how a father knows how to give good gifts to his son. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Jesus is telling us to be persistent in prayer and to trust and wait for how he will answer those prayers.

I like how Peter Kreeft looks at why we need to pray.

This reason—the reason why God does not give us the things we pray for until we pray for them—is the same reason why he does not give us the good things we work for until we work for them. Work and prayer both work by the same principle. God instituted both prayer and work for the same reason. God sees that we need not only the things we work for, like food and shelter and clothing and security, but also that we need work, meaningful work. God instituted prayer for the same reason he instituted work: to give us the dignity of being real causes, active coworkers and cooperators with him. We become strong, wise, patient, and persistent only by work. And the worker is more important than the work. What we ourselves become by working is more important than the work we do because we have intrinsic value and our work, however important, is only a means to a further end. “You can’t take it with you when you die” is true of all our work, but it’s not true of ourselves. We take ourselves with us everywhere, even to heaven.[4]

Bishop Baron in his commentary on this passage, writes:

One reason that we don’t receive what we want through prayer is that we give up too easily. What could be behind this rule of prayer? Augustine said that God sometimes delays in giving us what we want because he wants our hearts to expand. The more ardently we desire something, the more ready we are when it comes, the more we treasure it. The very act of asking persistently is accomplishing something spiritually important. So when the Lord seems slow to answer your prayer, never give up.

There is also a strong correlation between the First Reading of Exodus 17:8–13.

Pope Benedict XVI points out that Moses, with both arms lifted up in prayer, strikes a pose on the mountaintop much like Christ on the Cross. So we can see Moses here as a type of Christ, prefiguring the great prayer to the Father that was the Passion and Crucifixion, the great prayer which definitively defeated the enemy of God’s people. We participate in that great Prayer of Christ on the Cross at every Mass.[1]

If we start to become weary in prayer, we must never forget that we are always in community. That we need others to lift our arms up in prayer when we start to falter. We can never do this on our own. It is God who is giving us the grace to pray in the first place. There are several examples in the Old Testament where prophets start to despair and become fatigued, and God revitalizes them. He will do the same for us, and we can never be constant in prayer with this.

The last line of this Gospel passage is rather striking “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” This is in contrast to the prevalent myth of progress, where everything is going to improve more and more over time. Jesus warns in several places of a mass apostasy that is to come before the end of the world and his second coming.

CCC §675: Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.[3]

Our constancy in prayer is not dependent on the times we live in. We are always called to adore and praise God, give thanksgiving and make intercessions for ourselves and others. There is no time so dark that this is not true, and no time seemingly bright in contrast that this is not true.

One last note, this from St. Augustine:

The widow may be said to resemble the Church, which appears desolate until the Lord shall come, who now secretly watches over her. But in the following words, And she came unto him, saying, Avenge me. we are told the reason why the elect of God pray that they may be avenged; which we find also said of the martyrs in the Revelations of St. John, (Rev. 6:10.) though at the same time we are very plainly reminded to pray for our enemies and persecutors. This avenging of the righteous then we must understand to be, that the wicked may perish. And they perish in two ways, either by conversion to righteousness, or by punishment having lost the opportunity of conversion. Although, if all men were converted to God, there would still remain the devil to be condemned at the end of the world. And since the righteous are longing for this end to come, they are not unreasonably said to desire vengeance.[5]

Sources

The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year C, John Bergsma ↩
Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, “The Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C)” ↩
Catholic Church. (2000). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed). United States Catholic Conference. ↩
Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C ↩
St. Agustine, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Luke ↩

My Reflection on Sunday’s Gospel Luke 18:1–8

Sources

The Weekly Francis – Volume 432

The Weekly Francis – Volume 433

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