The first reading speaks of the power of prayer and a concrete example of this is seen in the case of Moses praying on the mountain for victory of his people. While Joshua and the army battle the Amalekites, Moses stands interceding with God and keeps on praying till the battle is won. More and more Moses was called to play the role of prophetic intercession for his people. His arms outstretched in prayer have remained a traditional symbol of prayer. Much more than our efforts is the power that is available to us when we call on God and avail of his power in our daily life.
What a friend we have in Jesus
Mary Cushman, who was a mother of five children ran into a series of financial crises, from one misery to another she was tortured in her life. Her husband did not have a decent job, was constantly sick and had repeated attacks of flue. She lost the house they had built with their own hands, and she took to washing and ironing clothes of neighbours to make ends meet. One day her eleven year old son was accused by the baker of stealing a couple of pencils though he was innocent. This was the straw that broke her back. She thought of all the miseries she had endured; and she saw the future and that was too bleak. She temporarily became insane and decided to end her life. She took her five year old daughter inside the bedroom, and plugged up the windows and cracks with paper and rags and turned on the gas heater but did not light it. She went to bed with her daughter and closed her eyes. She could hear the gas escaping from the heater. Suddenly she heard music. She had forgotten to turn the radio off in the kitchen. The music went on and presently she heard someone singing an old hymn. “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear……. What peace we often forfeit….because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. “ As she listen she realized her mistake, she had tried to fight her battle alone, she had not taken everything to God in prayer. She jumped up, turned off the gas and prayed the rest of the day. The problems did not get solved immediately but gradually she built up her life with God’s help and years later was a happy grandmother of three kids and all her children were well placed.
John Rose in “ John’s Sunday Homilies”
The power of prayer
A Hindu fable illustrates a better kind of prayer, in which we can see a great truth. Once the birds could not fly, but groveled and crept and hopped about, seeing nothing above the hedges, bearing on their backs a heavy and -to them apparently- useless weight of feathers. One day they decided to bear it no longer, and stretched and wriggled to get rid of the burden and behold, their very efforts unfolded their wings which bore them aloft, soaring up to God’s blue vault of heaven.
Anonymous
In today’s Gospel Jesus narrates the parable of the unjust judge and the widow who persistently demands justice from him until he relents and gives her what she asks of him. The parable which Jesus narrated however has a deeper lesson than the need for persevering prayer. In Palestinian tradition a single judge rather than a tribunal indicated that the woman was being denied her rights in some money matter. Widows and orphans in the Old Testament were stock types of persons who were utterly helpless. She is too poor to bribe the judge, the accepted way at that time, to get justice. In other words everything was against her getting justice in her favour, yet by sheer dint of perseverance she got want she demanded. From the Lord’s point of view, it is the unjust judge and not the poor widow who is the central figure in this parable. The point of the parable is not the perseverance of prayer but the absolute assurance of a hearing being granted based on the type of God we believe in, - a God of compassion and power to help. If human frailty can rise to the occasion, how much more will God not arise to aid the needy! We should never doubt the efficacy of our prayer, God might delay in coming to our aid but come He will, in his time. But do we have enough faith to wait on His will?
Prayer with faith
A messenger came to an old ivy-covered castle and knocked with the great iron knocker. No answer. He tried again; only a hollow echo. But he knew the folks were at home; for he had seen them in the window. So with growing anger he grabbed the knocker in both hands and banged away for all he was worth, 20- 30 times. A slow soft shuffle was his answer. Then a tiny wrinkled face popped out of a latch hole and timidly enquired whether the good gentleman wanted to come in. “Do I want to come in?” he raved. “Man, anyone who knocked as I did, must have.” “Well you see, it’s like this,” said the elderly lady. “There are so many little children around here who come up, bang the door a few times and then scamper off, so we’ve learned not to pay attention to them. But when I heard you knock, I really felt you wanted to come in; so that’s why I came to open the door.”
Bruno Hagspiel in ‘1000 Stories you can use’
“We should not conclude from this gospel account that the way to pray God is to be persistent: only pagans imagine that they will be heard for their many words. (Mt 6:7) On the other hand equally, God is not a judge who would be careless about administering justice. He does wish that we continue to put our needs before him. The lack of goodwill in the judge of the parable should make us understand that God will unfailingly give satisfaction to those who ask. And equally, as against the slowness of the judge, he will not delay to do so. The lessons of the parable are clear: the problem for us is that God seems to remain silent and inactive in spite of our petitions. By encouraging his followers to persevere in asking, Jesus suggests the relationship between faith and prayer……… Faith has need of the breathe of prayer if it is to flower in good works and remain alert and not grow weak and fade away. It is the same as our bodies’ need of food, and plants’ need of water. It is because faith is a living reality and cannot continue if it is not lived, that we ‘pray continually and never lose heart.” -Glenstal Bible Missal
Persistence in prayer
The movie Heartland dramatizes the story of the rugged prairie life in the early 1990’s. A widow named Elinmore Randell answers an ad to become a housekeeper for Clyde Stewart, a taciturn cattle homesteader in Burntfork, Wyoming. After a rocky beginning, their relationships smoothes out and they eventually get married, partly out of economic convenience and partly out of deep human needs. Together they heroically endure the hardships of a stubborn soil that yields little food, freezing winter winds that decimate their herd and the death of their newborn little boy. In the climax of the story, Clyde Stewart has given up on the cattle ranch and begins to pack their belongings. But Elinmore won’t let him quit. She pleads and bargains with him not to abandon their dream. Her tenacity triumphs when a calf is born, a sign of a new beginning, new life and new hope. Clyde finally agrees to stay and give the ranch one more try. Elinmore’s persistence and faith are comparable to the widow’s in today’s parable. The widow kept coming to the judge for her rights and eventually wore him out. Jesus uses her as an example of praying always and not losing hope.
Albert Cylwicki in ‘’His Word Resounds’
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1. From Andrew Greeley:
Once upon a time an anthropologist, one of Margaret Mead’s many husbands, noted that the natives on his little South Pacific Island prayed fervently over their yam gardens after they had planted them. Very interesting, he thought. Poor superstitious people. They think that prayer can actually improve the fruitfulness of their gardens. So he chuckled to himself about their naiveté and credulity. Then he remembered that he was a scientist and that in principle he ought to attempt some kind of controlled experiment before he dismissed the natives as ignorant savages.
So he decided that he would plant his own yam gardens in two spots that seemed exactly similar in style and sunlight. He also resolved to tend each of the gardens with equal care. Then he would pray over one and not the other. Unfortunately he didn’t know any prayers. But he did have a Hebrew bible with him. He didn’t understand Hebrew, but he could pronounce the words from after-school class of his youth. So he read a couple of passages each day from the bible over one of the gardens.
He later admitted that he probably cultivated the garden over which he did not pray with more care, because he really did not want the prayer to work. But it did. He had no idea what to make of the outcome of his experiment and repeated it several times. Each time prayer worked. What does one make of the story?
Maybe that God is a comedian!
2. "Things I Really Don't Understand."
Recently I received an e-mail message that was entitled "Things I Really Don't Understand." It had a list of questions for which there seems to be no clear-cut answer. Here are a few of them:
· Why do doctors and lawyers call what they do practice?
· Why is abbreviation such a long word?
· Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on your radio?
· Why is a boxing ring square?
· What was the best thing before sliced bread?
· How do they get the deer to cross the highway at those yellow signs?
· How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?
These questions represent a lighthearted humorous reminder that there are indeed a lot of things in this life that we just really don't understand.
There are so many things in this life that we just don't understand... that we just can't comprehend. For example, we don't really understand disease. Why is a youngster perfectly healthy for 13 years of his life... and then suddenly just happens to be in a place where he suddenly encounters some germ or bacteria that invades his body and destroys it?
And we don't understand accidents. They are so random and indiscriminate. You start out a day that is like any other day... and then something happens in a matter of seconds... and life is forever different. You can never go back beyond that accident.
On and on we could go with our list... of things we don't really understand...
___________________________· Why is abbreviation such a long word?
· Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on your radio?
· Why is a boxing ring square?
· What was the best thing before sliced bread?
· How do they get the deer to cross the highway at those yellow signs?
· How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?
These questions represent a lighthearted humorous reminder that there are indeed a lot of things in this life that we just really don't understand.
There are so many things in this life that we just don't understand... that we just can't comprehend. For example, we don't really understand disease. Why is a youngster perfectly healthy for 13 years of his life... and then suddenly just happens to be in a place where he suddenly encounters some germ or bacteria that invades his body and destroys it?
And we don't understand accidents. They are so random and indiscriminate. You start out a day that is like any other day... and then something happens in a matter of seconds... and life is forever different. You can never go back beyond that accident.
On and on we could go with our list... of things we don't really understand...
3. The Moth and the Fly
We all do it. The door of heaven's House of Bread, the ultimate pastry palace, is standing open. But we keep trying to break in the back door of the local bakery.
A parable by a well-known rabbi tells the story of a moth and a fly. One day a moth and a fly were together near a window. The moth sat comfortably on the side peering out, watching as the fly relentlessly flew up and around and straight into the window. The stunned fly would fall, then get up and try again. On and on the fly tried to find a way through the window, and each time failed.
Finally, the moth said, "Fly, why are you doing that? Can't you see by now that it's not working? Right over there is another window that's open. Why don't you just go over and fly to freedom through the open window?" "No," said the fly. "If I just try hard enough, I'll find the way out here." So on and on the fly persisted, circling the closed window and slamming its body into it.
The moth became more and more certain the fly was out of its mind when the solution was so simple. Soon nighttime came. The fly lay exhausted on the window sill, while the moth just shook its head. Just then, a light came on near the ceiling of the room, illuminating an open door at the other side of the room. Without thinking, the moth flew up straight toward the light, fizzled in the heat and fell dead to the floor.
Why do we try so hard to do the things that thwart us and harm us, when God opens doors and windows for us if only we had the faith to enter?
"Persistence in prayer" is not, I repeat, NOT the message of Jesus' parable in this week's missive...
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4. Until You Beat the Path
I believe persistent prayer is very important, even when such prayers are not answered in the ways we think best. It is important to be unrelenting in our prayers...not only because of the changes our prayers may elicit in God's mind, but for the changes such prayers can work in our own hearts and minds. As Frederick Buechner said years ago, persistence is a key, "not because you have to beat a path to God's door before [God will] open it, but because until you beat the path, maybe there's no way of getting to your door."
Buechner's comment set me to thinking that maybe there's more to this parable than we have sometimes seen. What if Jesus offered this parable not only as a call to prayerful persistence but also as a reminder to the church of the importance of securing justice for the poor and the oppressed in their midst? Alan Culpepper says, "To those who have it in their power to relieve the distress of the widow, the orphan and the stranger but do not [do so], the call to pray day and night is a command to let the priorities of God's compassion reorder the priorities of their lives."
Robert Dunham, Whose Persistence?
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5. Prayer Does Not Need Proof
Prayer does not need proof outside itself because its proofs are within. It is in the nature and function of man, like breathing, eating and drinking, and he practices it as part of his very being.
Samuel Johnson
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6. We Are God's Answer to Injustice
Listen to me. If you are being bullied in school, God knows about it and God hates it. If you are being harassed in the workplace, for any reason, God hates it. If you are being taken advantage of--or if you are taking unfair advantage of someone else--there will be a day of reckoning. If there is anyone anywhere praying for God to intervene and put an end to their oppression, eventually that prayer will be heard and that which is wrong will be set right. That's the promise of Scripture.
Now, where does that leave us? Let me tell you a story.
A young black man asked his minister why their people had to suffer so much poverty, hardship, and oppression. "Why doesn't God do something?" he wailed.
"He has," said that wise pastor. "He has created you."
And so Desmond Tutu, now the archbishop of South Africa, became the answer to his own question.
That's a good lesson for you and me. While we are waiting for God to bring in a perfect and just society, you and I are God's answer to the injustice in our world. That's what it means to take up a cross and follow Jesus. It's not a comfortable position to be in. It's not popular. But it is Christ's way.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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7. And Then Some
James Byrnes, who was Secretary of State under FDR, said that the difference between successful people and average people can be summed up in three words. Here are the three words, "and then some." He said, "Average people do what is expected. Successful people do what is expected, and then some." Our widow did what was expected, and then some.
John Wayne Clarke, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost (Last Third): Father, Forgive Them
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8. God Knows What I Need
A little boy knelt down to say his bedtime prayers. His parents heard him reciting the alphabet in very reverent tones. When asked what he was doing, he replied, "I'm saying my prayers, but I cannot think of the exact words tonight. So, I'm just saying all the letters. God knows what I need, and he'll put all the words together for me."
Now, that is not far from a proper way to pray! In seeking prayer we are looking for Christ's mind. We are not sure quite how to word our prayer. So we ask God to take our words and fit them into the correct prayer. We ask him to edit our prayers by cutting out the unnecessary, making corrections, and adding the necessities. We ask God to take our minds and make them his. We ask the Holy Spirit to pray through us. And when we seek in prayer like that, Jesus assures us in the text, we shall find.
Stephen M. Crotts, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost: Music from another Room, CSS Publishing Company
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9. Turn to Him in Prayer
I heard a pastor tell a story one time of something he saw back in the days of World War II. He was somewhere over in France, and he and a buddy of his were in a house. They happened to be cleaning that house. All of a sudden, the bombs started to fall just as they had begun to mop the kitchen floor.
He said he had a friend with him, a G.I., who was helping him to mop the floor. The floor was just covered with soap and water. When the bombs started to fall, this man tried to run. But the floor was so slippery he couldn't run. He kept falling down. Finally, he got his footing, and when he got to take a first real step, he stepped in the pail and got it stuck on his foot. That caused him to fall again. When he stood back up, he stepped on the mop, it flew up and hit him in the face and knocked him under the stairs. All the time the bombs are falling on that house.
He said he had a friend with him, a G.I., who was helping him to mop the floor. The floor was just covered with soap and water. When the bombs started to fall, this man tried to run. But the floor was so slippery he couldn't run. He kept falling down. Finally, he got his footing, and when he got to take a first real step, he stepped in the pail and got it stuck on his foot. That caused him to fall again. When he stood back up, he stepped on the mop, it flew up and hit him in the face and knocked him under the stairs. All the time the bombs are falling on that house.
He said this man was just struggling just to get out of that house and get to safety. In all of that bombing and chaos, he prayed and said, "O God, if you will just help me get out of this mess, I will get out of the next one all by myself."
Well, that soldier was right to pray in that situation, but he was wrong to say he wouldn't pray in the next one. You see, we are to turn every care into a prayer, every aggravation into a supplication, and every irritation into an invocation.
We are to pray when we are in trouble, but we are to pray when we are not in trouble. As a matter of fact, if we would give ourselves to more prayer we would get ourselves in less trouble.
James Merritt
James Merritt
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10. God's Timetable Not Ours
I heard a story which illustrates how we often confuse God's timing with ours. A country newspaper had been running a series of articles on the value of church attendance. One day, a letter to the editor was received in the newspaper office. It read, "Print this if you dare. I have been trying an experiment. I have a field of corn which I plowed on Sunday. I planted it on Sunday. I did all the cultivating on Sunday. I gathered the harvest on Sunday and hauled it to my barn on Sunday. I find that my harvest this October is just as great as any of my neighbors' who went to church on Sunday. So where was God all this time?" The editor printed the letter, but added his reply at the bottom. "Your mistake was in thinking that God always settles his accounts in October."
That's often our mistake as well, isn't it -- thinking that God should act when and how we want him to act, according to our timetable rather than his. The fact that our vision is limited, finite, unable to see the end from the beginning, somehow escapes our mind. So we complain; we get frustrated; we accuse God of being indifferent to us; we do not live by faith.
Larry R. Kalajainen, Extraordinary Faith for Ordinary Time, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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11. If You Just Hold Up Your Head
In a Peanut's cartoon Lucy encourages Charlie Brown: "Look at it this way, Charlie Brown," she consoles. "These are your bitter days. These are the days of your hardship and struggle ..." The next frame goes on: "... but if you just hold your head up high and keep on fighting, you'll triumph!" "Gee, do you really think so, Lucy?" Charlie asks. As she walks away Lucy says: "Frankly, no!"
Hope is like that. We speak of it more often than we believe in it. Hope is not a strong word for us. It has more to do with "wishing" than "expecting." It has the sound of resignation, an inability to bring about, influence, or even believe that a desired event or goal might ever come to be.
Theodore F. Schneider, Until the King Comes, CSS Publishing Company
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12. Parable of the Crazy Old Lady
Frankly, don't we wish that Jesus had told this parable in a little different way. Couldn't he have gotten the same point across if He had told it something like this:
Verily, verily I tell you that once upon a time there was a good lady who lived next door to an atheist. Every day, when the lady prayed, the atheist guy could hear her. He thought to himself, "She sure is crazy, praying all the time like that. Doesn't she know there is no GOD!" Many times while she was praying, he would go to her house and harass her, saying, "Lady, why do you pray all the time? Don't you know there is no GOD!" But she kept on praying.
One day, she ran out of groceries. As usual, she was praying to the Lord explaining her situation and thanking Him for what He was going to do. As usual, the atheist heard her praying and thought to himself, "Humph...I'll fix her."
He went to the grocery store, bought a whole bunch of groceries, took them to her house, dropped them off on the front porch, rang the doorbell and then hid in the bushes to see what she would do. When she opened the door and saw the groceries, she begin to praise the Lord with all her heart, jumping, singing, and shouting everywhere! The atheist then jumped out of the bushes and told her, "You crazy old lady. God didn’t buy you those groceries, I bought those groceries!’ Well, she broke out and started running down the street, shouting and praising the Lord. When he finally caught her, he asked what her problem was... She said "I knew the Lord would provide me with some groceries, but I didn’t know he was going to make the devil pay for them!"
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From Fr. Tony Kadavil's Collection:
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From Fr. Tony Kadavil's Collection:
1: Gideon’s experiment with prayer: Many years ago, a man named Dalton suggested that the prayer of petition should be put to the test. One-half of England, he said, should pray for rain and then compare the rainfall with the other half who did not pray for rain. He was not, in fact, the first believer with a flair for experimentation. In the Book of Judges, Gideon said to God, “If you really mean to deliver Israel by my hand, as you have declared, see now, I spread out a fleece. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is left dry, then I shall know.” Gideon had the mind of a true experimenter. The following night he reversed his experiment to test God a second time. He prayed, “Do not be angry with me if I speak once again…. Let the fleece alone be dry and let there be dew on the ground all around it” (Jgs 6:36-40). Prayer isn’t just a way of getting what we want, but some people go to the opposite extreme of never asking God for anything (while having no problem with the prayer of praise, thanks, and so on). If it makes sense to thank God for something, it must make sense to ask God for it and to persevere in that prayer as Jesus proposes in today’s Gospel (Bible Diary 2004).
# 2: “Never give in!” Years ago, there was a young man in Illinois with only six months of formal school education. His mother home-schooled him and taught him to have a dream and to keep trying to realize that dream, relying on the power of persistent prayer. First, he ran for an office in the legislature and was beaten. Next, he entered business but failed at that, too, and spent the next 17 years paying the debts of his worthless partner. He fell in love with a charming young lady and they became engaged. But she died which led the young man to a short-term nervous breakdown. Next, he ran for Congress and was defeated. He then tried to obtain an appointment to the U.S. Land Office but didn’t succeed. With strong belief in the power of prayer, he ran for U. S. Vice-Presidency and lost. Two years later he was defeated again for the office of Senator. He ran for office once more and was elected the 16th President of the United States, thus realizing his dream by the power of persistent prayer. He was Abraham Lincoln. It took Winston Churchill three years to get through the eighth grade, because he couldn’t pass English – of all things! Ironically, he was asked many years later to give the commencement address at his alma mater, Harrow School. His now famous speech centered around three words: “Never give in!” (https://youtu.be/Ydi_KGXA9lk). No leader in history, perhaps, matched Churchill’s capacity for blurring the lines between speech and battle cry. This is one of his best. It’s an urban legend that the “Never give in” exhortation comprised the totality of his address; Churchill went on for several more paragraphs. But there’s no question that this, far and away, was what Harrow’s students remembered. And that is the message of today’s Gospel parable of the poor widow and the corrupt judge. (Adapted from Harold Butzow’s “God Still Speaks! Listen”).
# 3: The persistent widow in our midst: It may be a spouse’s Parkinson’s disease, a parent’s Alzheimer’s, a sister’s breast cancer, a child’s leukemia. The illness of a loved one, a catastrophe striking their family, the suffering of someone dear to them transforms these moms and dads and sons and daughters and friends into dedicated advocates and determined guardians. They fight hospitals and insurance companies for the critical medical care needed by their loved one. They take on the most obstinate bureaucracies for the assistance and services their child is entitled to but denied. They work tirelessly to raise awareness, raise money, and, when necessary, raise Cain, so that their loved one may live as full a life as possible, so that a cure might be found, so that other families will not have to experience the pain and anguish they have known. These dedicated men and women are the Gospel widow in our midst. They face down the “dishonest judges” of arrogance and avarice; they take on the “fearful judges” of insensitivity and unawareness; they go toe-to-toe with the “judges who fear neither God nor respect any human being,” save themselves. Their love for the sick and suffering enables them to carry on “day and night;” their faith and conviction in the rightness of their cause empowers them to carry on despite the frustration and inaction they face. The very compassion of God is their hope and assurance that their prayer will be heard. (Connections).
4) Persistent prayer works: The middle-aged farm couple had no children. As a last resort they put their trust in persistent prayer. And it worked. The wife became pregnant, and at the end of her term, she was delivered of triplets. “Persistent prayer really works, doesn’t it?” she asked her husband. Her husband replied, “Seems to– but I sure as heck didn’t pray for a bumper crop!”
5) Refreshing sermon: The pastor gave an unusually long sermon on prayer that Sunday based on the parable of The Poor Widow and the Corrupt Judge. Later at the door, while the pastor was shaking hands with his parishioners, one man said: “Father, your sermon, was simply wonderful- -so invigorating, inspiring and refreshing.” The pastor, of course, broke out in a big smile only to hear with a shock the man’s next words: “I felt like a new man when I woke up after you finished your sermon!”
24- Additional anecdotes
1) “So where was God all this time?” There is a story which illustrates how we often confuse God’s timing with our own. A rural newspaper had been running a series of articles on the value of Church attendance in its Sunday Religion column. One day, the editor received a letter which read: “Print this if you dare. I am trying an experiment. I have a field of corn which I plowed on Sunday. I planted it on Sunday. I did all the cultivating on Sunday. I gathered the harvest on Sunday and hauled it to my barn on Sunday. I find that my harvest this October is just as great as any of my neighbors who went to Church on Sunday. So where was God all this time?” The editor printed the letter, but added his reply at the bottom: “Your mistake lies in thinking that God always settles his accounts in October.” We who believe in the power of prayer often wrongly think that our persevering prayers will force God to act when and how we want Him to act, according to our timetable and according to our desire. (Rev. R. J. Fairchild). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
2) Perseverance of Olympians: Most of us will never be Olympians no matter how hard we work. We haven’t inherited the right combination of endurance, potential, speed and muscle. But given equal talent, the better-trained athlete can generally outperform the one who did not give a serious effort, and is usually more confident at the starting block. The four years before an Olympics, Greg Louganis probably practiced each of his dives 3,000 times. Kim Zmeskal has probably done every flip in her gymnastics routine at least 20,000 times, and Janet Evans has completed more than 240,000 laps. Training works, but it isn’t easy or simple. Swimmers train an average of 10 miles a day, at speeds of 5 mph in the pool. That might not sound fast, but their heart rates average 160 the entire time. Try running up a flight of stairs, then check your heart rate. Then imagine having to do that for four hours! Marathon runners average 160 miles a week at 10 mph. Two important training principles must be followed: Progressively increase the amount and intensity of the work. Train specifically. Persevere with prayer till you realize your dream. (John Troup, USA Today, July 29, 1992, 11E). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
3) Perseverance of Wilma Rudolf, the Olympic gold medalist: Wilma didn’t get much of a head start in life. Wilma Glodean Rudolph was born prematurely at 4.5 lbs., the 20th of 22 siblings; her father Ed was a railway porter and her mother Blanche a maid. Rudolph contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the polio virus) at age four. She recovered, but wore a brace on her left leg and foot (which had become twisted as a result) until she was nine. She was required to wear an orthopedic shoe for support of her foot for another two years. At age 12 Wilma tried out for a girls’ basketball team, but didn’t make it. Determined, she practiced with a girlfriend and two boys every day. The next year she made the team. When a college track coach saw her during a game, he talked her into letting him train her as a runner. By age 14 she had outrun the fastest sprinters in the U.S. In 1956 Wilma made the U.S. Olympic team, but showed poorly. That bitter disappointment motivated her to work harder for the 1960 Olympics in Rome–and there Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals, the most a woman had ever won. The widow in today’s Gospel story might have been her source of inspiration. [Today in the Word, Moody Bible Institute, (Jan, 1992), p.10].(http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
4) Widow’s-like persistence: An A&E survey of the top ten most influential people or leaders of the past 1000 years yielded the following list: 10) Galileo 9) Copernicus 8) Albert Einstein 7) Karl Marx 6) Christopher Columbus 5) William Shakespeare 4) Charles Darwin 3) Martin Luther 2) Isaac Newton 1) Johann Gutenberg. Without exception, each one of the remarkable persons named by the survey met with total resistance, complete rejection, and absolute failure whenever he attempted to impress his unique new visions upon the world in which he lived. Despite the fact that these individuals represent diverse insights and radical advancements in science, politics, literature, religion, and technology, they’re all tied together by a common trait. Each of these historically exalted individuals was widow-like in persistence, exhibiting unfailing endurance in the face of seemingly insurmountable opposition. But the parable that Jesus gives in today’s Gospel is not just about persistence. It’s about persistence coupled with prayer. When you yoke persistence with prayer, you get revolution. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
5) Slow starters who persevered to accomplish their dreams: Many famous People Who Were Slow Starters: Winston Churchill seemed so dull as a youth that his father thought he might be incapable of earning a living in England. Charles Darwin did so poorly in school that his father once told him, “You will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family. G.K. Chesterton, the English writer, could not read until he was eight. One of his teachers told him, “If we could open your head we should not find any brain but only a lump of white fat.” Thomas Edison’s first teacher described him as “addled,” and his father almost convinced him he was a “dunce.” Albert Einstein’s parents feared their child was dull, and he performed so badly in all high school courses except mathematics that a teacher asked him to drop out. (Irving Wallace, Book of Lists, 1986, Wm. Morrow & Co., NY, NY). Prayerful perseverance was the secret of their success. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
6) “Mendel, you’re a wonderful tailor.” There is an old story about a tailor who visits his rabbi and says, “I have a problem with my prayers. If someone comes to me and says, ‘Mendel, you’re a wonderful tailor,’ that makes me feel good. I feel appreciated. I can go on feeling good for a whole week, even longer on the strength of one compliment like that. But if people came to me every day, one after another, hour after hour, and kept saying to me ‘Mendel, you’re a wonderful tailor,’ over and over again it would drive me crazy. This is what bothers me about prayer. Is God so insecure that He needs us praising him every day? Three times a day, morning, noon, and night? It seems to me it would drive Him crazy.” The rabbi smiled and said, “Mendel, you’re absolutely right. You have no idea how hard it is for God to listen to all of our praises, hour after hour, day after day. But God knows how important it is for us to utter that praise, so in His great love for us, He tolerates all of our prayers.” [Harold Kushner, Who Needs God? (New York: Summit Books, 1989), p.153.] In telling the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus is teaching the disciples to pray with persistence. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
7) God always answers prayer. Now for us to get our prayers answered the way that we want them answered, the request must be right, the timing must be right, and we must be right. But that is not always the case. “If the request is wrong, God answers, “No.” If the timing is wrong, God answers, “Slow.” If we are wrong, God answers, “Grow.” But if the request is right, the timing is right, and we are right, God says, “Go!” (Bill Hybels: Too Busy to Pray, p. 74). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
8) But every time they’re knocked down, they stand up. Author Irving Stone has spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing novelized biographies of such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwin. Stone was once asked if he had found a thread that runs through the lives of all these exceptional people. He said, “I write about people who sometime in their life…have a vision or dream of something that should be accomplished…and they go to work. “They are beaten over the head, knocked down, vilified and for years they get nowhere. But every time they’re knocked down, they stand up. You cannot destroy these people. And at the end of their lives they’ve accomplished some modest part of what they set out to do.” (Crossroads, Issue No. 7, p. 18). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
9) “American history shall march along that skyline,” announced Gutzon Borglum in 1924, gazing at the Black Hills of South Dakota. In 1927 Borglum began sculpting the images of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt on the granite face of 6,000-foot Mount Rushmore. Most of the sculpting was done by experienced miners under Borglum’s direction. Working with jackhammers and dynamite, they removed some 400,000 tons of outer rock, cutting within three inches of the final surface. When Borglum died in March 1941, his dream of the world’s biggest sculpture was near completion. His son Lincoln finished the work that October, some 14 years after it was begun. (Today in the Word, January 2, 1993). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
10) Persistence paid off for American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the planet Pluto. After astronomers calculated a probable orbit for this “suspected” heavenly body, Tombaugh took up the search in March 1929. Time magazine recorded the investigation: “He examined scores of telescopic photographs each showing tens of thousands of star images in pairs under the dual microscope. It often took three days to scan a single pair. It was exhausting, eye-cracking work–in his own words, ‘brutal, tediousness.’ And it went on for months. Star by star, he examined 20 million images. Then on February 18, 1930, as he was blinking at a pair of photographs in the constellation Gemini, ‘I suddenly came upon the image of Pluto!” It was the most dramatic astronomic discovery in nearly 100 years. (Today in the Word, November 26, 1991). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
11) The movie Dances with Wolves: Some of the wealthiest people in our society fought for years in their early days just to avoid bankruptcy. During their struggle for solvency, they learned some lessons that prepared them for later prosperity. They are successful today because they didn’t quit. Some of the happiest adults are people who felt lonely and rejected as teenagers. Sometimes, people who hang in there and refuse to fold come out on top. A young man named Michael Blake suffered through poverty while writing screenplays that for years were never accepted. He admits, “I slept on a lot of floors,” as friends would let him stay at their homes. Then he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymph system, which is currently in remission. But then he did something that would radically alter his life. He wrote a book that sold 30,000 copies. It was not a massive best seller, but Kevin Costner liked it and made the movie Dances with Wolves from it. Now the book has sold over 2 million copies, and Michael has won the Oscar for the movie adaptation. He now enjoys speaking in schools and to homeless children. “I tell them that if you stay committed, your dreams can come true. I am living proof of it. I left home at seventeen and had nothing but rejection for twenty-five years. I wrote more than twenty screenplays, but I never gave up.” (Art Mortell, The Courage to Fail, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1993; quoted by Fr. Botelho) People who trust in God and never give up often win. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
12) Frightening statistics and the need for restoration of family prayer: Families are falling apart in the Unites States, as is made clear from the following statistics: 1) There has been a 200% growth in single parent households since 1970 – from four million to eight million homes. 2) The number of married moms leaving home for work each morning rose 65% from 10.2 million in 1970, to 16.8 million in 1990. 3) Married couples with children now make up only 26% of US households, down from 40% in 1970. 4) 36% of children said their chores included making their own meals in 1993. Only 13% said the same in 1987. 5) An estimated 70% of juvenile offenders come from single parent families. 6) The average child has watched 8,000 televised murders and 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school. 7) One in six youths, between the ages of 10 and 17, has seen or known someone who has been shot. 8) The estimated number of child-abuse victims increased 40% between 1985 and 1991. 9) In 1988, 26% of girls, age 15, reported being sexually active, as compared to only 5% in 1970. 10) Children under 18 are 244% more likely to be killed by guns than they were in 1986 [Newsweek (Jan 10, 1994).] It is not surprising that a study, completed at the University of Rhode Island described the American home as the most dangerous place to be outside of riots and a war. (Charles R. Swindoll, Strengthening Your Grip, 254). Next to those facts, put this observation: Newsweek magazine (Jan 10, 1994), discovered that a surprisingly large percentage of Americans believe deeply in the efficacy of prayer. According to a Gallup poll they commissioned, 78% of Americans prayed once a week, and 57% prayed at least once a day. 91% of women prayed at some time, and 85% of men. This included 94% of blacks and 87% of whites (Newsweek, 6, 1992). Now, when we think about the problems we have in the families, we will be convinced that we need to get daily family prayer back in our homes. We need to use the power of prayer to bring families together, to put families together, and to keep families together. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
13) “Knock and it shall be opened:” The book of Job is perhaps the best place in Scripture to study “knocking prayer.” There, the righteous Job is devastated. He loses his children, his friends, his property, and his health. Satan has horribly afflicted him. His wife urges him to curse God and die. But instead, Job begins a knocking prayer. “Oh, that today I might find Him that I might come to His judgment seat! I would set out my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments; I would learn the words with which He would answer, and understand what He would reply to me.” (Job 23:3-5). Thus, Job begins to knock in prayer. He blindly gropes for God. He patiently, and sometimes impatiently, yearns for deliverance. Again, and again, Job reaches for God in prayer. Though his body is wasting away, though all seems lost, though he cannot understand, Job has Faith in God. His heart is filled with hope and he says: “But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that He will at last stand forth upon the dust; And from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing.” (Job 19:25-26). Thus, with Hope, Faith, and persistence Job continues to knock in prayer. Finally, God comes to him. Though the Lord does not explain the affliction, He does heal Job. He restores his fortune and gives him ten more children. As Jesus promised, His door will be opened to those that knock. And Job triumphantly says to God, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be hindered. I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know. I had heard of You by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen You. (Job 42:, 5). (Music from Another Room, Rev. Stephen M. Crotts)(http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
14) Perseverance of Andrew Jackson: The story is told that U. S. President Andrew Jackson’s boyhood friends just couldn’t understand how he became a famous general and then the President of the United States. They knew of other men who had greater talent but who never succeeded. One of Jackson’s friends said, “Why, Jim Brown, who lived right down the pike from Jackson, was not only smarter but he could throw Andy three times out of four in a wrestling match. But look where Andy is now.” Another friend responded, “How did there happen to be a fourth time? Didn’t they usually say three times and out?” “Sure, they were supposed to, but not Andy. He would never admit he was beat — he would never stay ‘throwed.’ Jim Brown would get tired, and on the fourth try Andrew Jackson would throw him and be the winner.” Picking up on that idea, someone has said, “The thing that counts is not how many times you are ‘throwed,’ but whether you are willing to stay ‘throwed’.” We may face setbacks, but we must take courage and go forward in Faith. Then through the Holy Spirit’s power, we can be the eventual victor over sin and the world. The battle is the Lord’s, so there is no excuse for us to stay “throwed”!(http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
15) Perseverance of a swimmer: From the booklet, Bits and Pieces, comes an interesting story about Florence Chadwick, the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions. When she was young, Florence Chadwick wanted desperately to be a great speed swimmer. At the age of six, she persuaded her parents to enter her in a 0,-yard race, She came in last, so she practiced every day for the New Year. Again, she entered and lost. When she was an 11-year old, Florence won attention and praise for completing the San Diego Bay endurance swim — 6 miles in all. But she still wanted to be a speed swimmer. At 14, she tried for the national backstroke championship but came in second to the great Eleanor Holm. At 18 she tried out for Olympic speed swimming and came in fourth — only three made the team. Frustrated, she gave it up, married, and moved on to other interests. As she matured, however, Florence began to wonder if she might not have done better if she had specialized in endurance swimming, something that came more naturally. So, with the help of her father, she began swimming distances again. Twelve years after she had failed to make the Olympic team, Florence Chadwick swam the English Channel, breaking Gertrude Ederle’s 24-year-old record. On the Fourth of July in 1951, she attempted to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast. The challenge was not so much the distance, but the bone-chilling waters of the Pacific. To complicate matters, a dense fog lay over the entire area, making it impossible for her to see land. After about 15 hours in the water, and within a half mile of her goal, Chadwick gave up. Later she told a reporter, “Look, I’m not excusing myself. But if I could have seen land, I might have made it.” Not long afterward she attempted the feat again. Once more a misty veil obscured the coastline and she couldn’t see the shore. But this time she made it because she kept reminding herself that land was there. With that confidence she bravely swam on and achieved her goal. In fact, she broke the men’s record by 2 hours! It took a little time, but eventually she found out what she could do best and did it. (Crossroads, Issue No. 7, p. 19).(http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
16) Bette Nesmith’s “MistakeOut.” Bette Nesmith had a good secretarial job in a Dallas bank when she ran across a problem that interested her. Wasn’t there a better way to correct the errors she made on her electric typewriter? Bette had some art experience and she knew that artists who worked in oils just painted over their errors. Maybe that would work for her too. So she concocted a fluid to paint over her typing errors. Before long, all the secretaries in her building were using what she then called “MistakeOut”. She attempted to sell the product idea to marketing agencies and various companies (including IBM), but they turned her down. However, secretaries continued to like her product, so Bette Nesmith’s kitchen became her first manufacturing facility and she started selling it on her own. When Bette Nesmith sold the enterprise, the tiny white bottles were earning $3.5 million annually on sales of $38 million. The buyer was Gillette Company and the sale price was $47.5 million. (Crossroads, Issue No. 7, pp. 3-4). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
17) Ross Perot’s perseverance: During the Vietnam War the Texas Computer millionaire, H. Ross Perot decided he would give a Christmas present to every American prisoner of war in Vietnam. According to David Frost, who tells the story, Perot had thousands of packages wrapped and prepared for shipping. He chartered a fleet of Boeing 707s to deliver them to Hanoi, but the war was at its height, and the Hanoi government said it would refuse to cooperate. No charity was possible, officials explained, while American bombers were devastating Vietnamese villages. The wealthy Perot offered to hire an American construction firm to help rebuild what Americans had knocked down. The government still wouldn’t cooperate. Christmas drew near, and the packages were unsent. Refusing to give up, Perot finally took off in his chartered fleet and flew to Moscow, where his aides mailed the packages, one at a time, at the Moscow central post office. They were delivered intact. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
18) “Then I dug in and wrestled and won.” Zabysco was a Polish physician, who became a world champion wrestler. During World War I he was captured by Russian soldiers and sentenced to death. Thinking to have fun with him, the Russians offered to free him if he could defeat their wrestling champion. Zabysco said, “I prayed that God would give me strength and judgment. Then I dug in and wrestled and won.” [Alexander Lake, Your Prayers are Always Answered (Gilbert Press, 1956).] Sometimes that is the answer to our prayers as well – to pray, to dig in and then to wrestle. And when we do wrestle in Faith, we grow. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
19) Prayer Power: Some years ago, Guideposts magazine printed a remarkable story. It was about a young high school teacher named Mary. She wanted so much to succeed as a teacher. But a student named Bill was turning her into a nervous wreck. One morning, before school began, Mary was sitting at her classroom desk writing something in shorthand. Suddenly Bill appeared at the door. “What are you writing?” he asked as he approached her desk, “I’m writing a prayer to God,” she said, “Can God read shorthand?” he joked. “He can do anything,” said Mary, “even answer this prayer.” Then she tucked the prayer inside her Bible and turned to write on the chalkboard. As she did, Bill slipped the prayer from her Bible into his typing book. Twenty year later Bill was going through a box of his belongings that his mother had stored in her attic. He came across his old typing book. Picking it up, he began to thumb through it. Lo and behold, he found the shorthand prayer. It was yellow and faded with age. Bill stared at the jottings on the paper and wondered what they said. He took the prayer and put it in his wallet. When he got to his office, he gave the prayer to his secretary to decipher. She read it and blushed. “It’s rather personal,” she said. “I’ll type it out and put it on your desk when I leave tonight.” That night Bill read the prayer. It said: “Dear God, don’t let me fail this job. I can’t handle my class with Bill upsetting it. Touch his heart. He’s someone who can become either very good or very evil.” The final sentence bit Bill like a hammer. Only hours before, he was contemplating making a decision that would commit him to a life of evil. During the next week Bill took the prayer out several times to read it. To make a long story short, that prayer caused Bill to change his mind about doing what he was contemplating. Weeks later Bill located his old teacher and told her how her prayer had changed his life. (Mark Link in Sunday Homilies). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
20) Prayer is the key…Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the Indian nation and the chief architect of its freedom from colonial rule and independence, was a secret admirer of Jesus Christ. Gandhi used to read the Gospels and was particularly fascinated by the Sermon on the Mount. Mahatma Gandhi was first and foremost a man of prayer. He faithfully began each day at four in the morning with an hour’s prayer in the little sanctuary he had arranged in his modest home. His phenomenal success and unparalleled fame as a freedom fighter can be ascribed to his indomitable patience and tenacity and his unshakable Faith in God. In a word, Gandhi, like every devoutly religious person and successful person, worked as though all depended on him, but prayed as though all depended on God. Gandhi once said: “I am neither a man of letters nor of science, but I humbly claim to be a man of prayer. It is prayer that has saved my life. Without it I would have lost my reason long ago. If I did not lose my peace of soul in the midst of my many trials, it is because of the peace that came to me through prayer. One can live several days without food, but not without prayer. Prayer is the key to each morning and the lock to each evening. Let everyone try this experience and they will find that daily prayer will add something new to their lives, something which cannot be found elsewhere. (James Valladares in Your Words O Lord Are Spirit, and They Are Life; quoted by Fr. Botelho). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
21) Hang in there! Once there was a little boy who wanted more than anything to play in the school band. The boy went home one day and asked his parents if they would buy him an instrument and let him play in the band. They said, “We will think about it. After all, a musical instrument costs a lot of money and we are not sure you will stick with it.” A few days went by and the boy’s parents hadn’t said anything, so the boy decided to ask again. The boy’s parents didn’t say yes and they didn’t say no. They said, “We are still thinking about it.” On his way home the next day, the boy decided to stop by the local music store to check out the musical instruments. When he walked in the store, the first thing that caught his eye was a beautiful shiny trumpet. It wasn’t new, but it was in good condition. It was just what he wanted. That night at supper the boy said to his parents, “I went by the music store today after school and they really have a nice trumpet, it is exactly what I want and it costs only $100!” The boy’s father turned to his wife and said, “We had better go and take a look at that trumpet or we are not going to hear the end of this.” The next day the boy went to the music store with his parents and they bought him that trumpet. The boy joined the band and he stuck with it. He played in the band all through high school and when he graduated from high school, he went on to university and studied music. After graduating from university, he became a music teacher. I wonder how differently his life might have turned out if he had asked his parents for that musical instrument one time and never mentioned it again. Perhaps God, too, wants us to show that we are really serious about what we ask of Him. He may not always answer in the way we want, but we have to trust that God loves us and knows what is best for us. (John Pichappilly in The Table of the Word; quoted by Fr. Botelho). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
22) Film – Heartland: The movie Heartland dramatizes the story of rugged prairie life in the early 1900’s. A widow named Elinore Randall answers an ad to become a housekeeper for Clyde Stewart, a taciturn cattle homesteader in Burntfork, Wyoming. After a rocky beginning, their relationship smoothes out and they eventually get married, partly out of economic convenience and partly out of deep human needs. Together they heroically endure the hardships of a stubborn soil that yields little food, freezing winter winds that decimate their herd and the death of their new born little boy. In the climax of the story, Clyde Stewart has given up on the cattle ranch and begins to pack their belongings. But Elinore won’t let him quit. She pleads and bargains with him not to abandon their dream. Her tenacity triumphs when a calf is born, a sign of a new beginning, new life and new hope. Clyde finally agrees to stay and give the ranch one more try. Elinore’s persistence and faith are comparable to the widow’s in today’s parable. The widow kept coming to the judge for her rights and eventually wore him out. Jesus uses her as an example of praying always and not losing heart. (Albert Cylwicki in His Word Resounds). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
23) Tenacity: A little-known man who exemplified that tenacity is John Harrison. Until the eighteenth century, sailors navigated by following parallels of latitude and roughly estimating distance travelled east or west. Ships routinely missed their destinations. In 1714, England’s Parliament offered a large reward to anyone who provided a “practicable and useful” means of determining longitude. Most astronomers believed the answers lay in the sky, but Harrison, a clock maker, imagined a mechanical solution – a clock that would keep precise time at sea. By knowing the exact times at the Greenwich meridian and at a ship’s position, one could find longitude by calculating the time difference. However, most scientists, including Isaac Newton, discounted Harrison’s idea. Harrison persisted. He worked for decades – decades! – of his brilliant life, in spite of skepticism and ridicule, developing a timepiece. Even after completing his timepiece, an instrument we now call a chronometer, in 1759, he underwent a long series of unfair trials and demonstrations. Ultimately, he triumphed. (Harold Buetow in God Still Speaks! Listen; quoted by Fr. Botelho). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).
24) “We did answer all your prayers.” There was a story of a man who prayed religiously without ceasing to God. Even during the celebration of the Mass, he always said his rosary. He walked to the altar of the church with his knees on the floor. He told his neighbors that he wants God to be the one to answer all His prayers. A typhoon came into their village and flooded the whole village. It was reported that a tidal wave would come and sweep the entire village. A policeman came informing the village people about the coming tidal wave and the typhoon, but this man did not mind the policeman would not leave the place because he wanted that God would be the one to answer his prayers. The flood became bigger and bigger, so a boat sailed on the water informing again this person to vacate the place, but he wanted that God would be the one to answer his prayers. Later, when the water level was already on the roof, a helicopter came in order to rescue this man, but he did not listen to the request. So he died and went into the gate of heaven. He was angry with St. Peter because God did not answer his prayers. St. Peter said: “We did answer all your prayers. We sent you a policeman, a boat and a helicopter, but you did not listen to all of them. It’s not our fault.” (Fr. Benitez). (http://frtonyshomilies.com/). L/19
