By Jerry Franzen
Cathedral 10/16/16
Exodus 17:8-13 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
Luke 18:1-8
*A lone man
survived a shipwreck in a life boat
and
managed to make it to a deserted island.
From the
lifeboat, he built a rudimentary hut in which he slept
and in which he kept some possessions
that he managed to take with him in the lifeboat.
Every day he
prayed to God
that
he would be delivered from this ordeal,
that he would be rescued.
Every day he
searched the horizon to hail a ship that might pass by.
One day he was
horrified to find his hut in flames.
All that he had
saved from the shipwreck was gone;
as was his shelter.
To the man’s
limited vision, it was the worst that could happen.
He cursed God for not answering his
prayers for a rescue.
The very next
day a ship anchored off the island and rescued him.
The captain told
him, “We saw your smoke signal.”
I
Three years ago
I began my homily
for the 29th Sunday in
Ordinary Time with that story.
I said that the
readings then spoke to me about perseverence,
and they still do speak to me about
perseverance,
specifically perseverance in
prayer.
We are in the
midst of the month of October,
the month in which we are encouraged
to promote
a change of heart in those
who have embraced
the culture of death.
On more than one
occasion, I have heard Bishop Foys
describe the scene of a person on his or her
deathbed.
People are
gathered around and someone says,
“We’ve done
everything we can do medically;
the only thing left is to pray.”
Bishop Foys
would then go on to remind his listeners
that prayer should not be considered the
“last resort,”
but is should be the most
important thing to do.
The same is true
in the ProLife movement.
We can march, we
can include our names in the newspaper add,
we can work to elect to office those
who support
the ProLife movement,
we can put ProLife
messages on our cars.
We can support
centers that minister to women
with untimely pregnancies;
we can protest the death penalty.
All of those
actions are good for the cause.
We can do many
things, but we sometimes forget
that the primary thing we should be
doing is praying
for an end to the violence
that takes an innocent life.
We have been at
prayer for this cause for a long time,
more than 40 years,
and throughout that time some 55
million lives have been lost.
That could be discouraging, yet we must persevere
in that prayer,
just as Moses prayed unceasingly
that God would give the Israelites the
victory.
We, too, must
persevere in our prayer.
We have so many
directions that our prayer can take:
Pray for the women seeking an
abortion,
that they have a change of
heart.
Pray for those performing abortions,
that
they recognize that abortion is
the taking of an innocent human life, murder.
Pray for those who have had an
abortion,
that they seek help in
counseling and realize God’s mercy.
Pray for the promotion of adoption
as an alternative to
abortion.
Pray for those who work
and volunteer in pregnancy care centers.
Pray for an end of the death penalty.
Pray for an end of assisted suicide
and other forms of euthanasia.
There are many
other directions for our prayer to take,
certainly there are enough to go
around.
Each of us is
not alone; we are united as the Body of Christ.
We have the support
of each other
just as Moses had support from Aaron and Hur.
Yes, we must
persevere in our prayer.
Moses had an
advantage that we do not have;
he could see the immediate results of
his prayer:
Hands up
Israelites gaining; hands down Israelites loosing.
Prayer is not
often answered in that way;
we must persist and have faith
that God will eventually accomplish
the victory.
II
In today’s
Gospel, Jesus said that the parable was
“about the necessity for the (disciples) to
pray always
without becoming weary.”
I see the
dishonest judge in the parable
as the moral climate of today.
Secular humanism
and relativism have led many people
to deny that there is a God, the author of
truth
that demands the designation
of “right” and “wrong.”
Many have the
“if it feels good, do it” attitude,
without regard to how others might be
affected,
much less themselves.
The judge in the
parable
“neither feared God nor respected any
human being.”
We, who support
the sanctity of life, may feel like the widow,
who was alone without any one to
support her.
She was fighting
an uphill battle
as we are struggling against the prevailing
moral climate.
“For a long time
the judge was unwilling”
to render a just decision in favor of the
widow.”
For almost 44
years we have been working
to reverse the culture of death.
But neither
Moses nor the widow gave up; they persevered,
III
Praying with
perseverence. Why must we persevere?
Why can’t we just
pray once and let that be it?
Maybe God wants
to hear from us more often,
so that we do not forget about Him,
forget that he is our Father,
our Abba, our “Daddy.”
He knows that,
if we continually turn to Him with our needs,
our faith in Him will be increased.
Our prayers don’t
change God, but they should change us.
I have quoted to
you before the following definition of faith:
“Faith is our
response to a God
who is ever inviting us into a deeper
relationship with Him.”
Our responses to
Him, our prayers, should increase our faith.
We will not
change God with our repeated petitions,
but WE will be changed for the better
in our
relationship with God.
I feel that I have been the beneficiary
of so many of God’s gifts,
such that my prayer is
that I can be
faithful enough to God to cooperate with the grace,
He provides with every element
that is part of God’s plan
for me.
That can be a
good way of forming our prayer intention related to
the ProLife cause –
“that those who do not recognize the sanctity of
human life from conception to natural death would cooperate with God’s grace to
have a change of heart and recognize that sanctity.”
AND, if you are
looking for a particular prayer form,
remember October is also the month in
which
we promote the rosary as a form of prayer.
At the “Priests
for Life” web site you can find
special ProLife meditations for the mysteries
of the rosary.
Today’s parable
is unusual in that God is often represented
by
one of the characters in the parable.
In other
parables God is the Sower of seed, the Good Shepherd,
the
Father of the prodigal son, etc.
The corrupt
judge is rather like the opposite of God.
However, the
judge and God do have one thing in common:
They each can
hear the voice of those petitioning them.
The widow at
least had the opportunity to plead her case.
She, like us,
had a voice
with which to repeat her request for justice.
That is not true
for the well over 55 million persons
killed in abortions since the decision
in the case of Roe vs Wade.
They had no
chance to make their plea for justice.
We must be their
voice and pray always without becoming weary.
May we continue
to pray that abortion be declared murder,
that the killing be stopped,
and that when the Son of Man
comes,
He will truly find
faith on earth.
*Taken
from “1001 More Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking” Zondervan
Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI 1998 p 254 #720.
