Pray Without Becoming Weary

A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running as fast as she could, trying not to be late for Sunday School.  As she ran she prayed, "Dear Lord, please don't let me be late! Dear Lord, please don't let me be late!  Please don’t let me late!”

As she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress.  She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again. As she ran, she once again began to pray, "Dear Lord, please don't let me be late!...But don't shove me either."

This little girl with her repeated prayer reminds us of our Gospel from Luke that begins with: “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary…”  Jesus told them and now us: “Pray always…don’t become weary…be persistent.”  We can assume Jesus might have said as well: “I’m with you.  Take my hand.  If you fall, I’ll pull you up.  I’ll never give up on you.”  This would apply to the little girl as well as to each and every one of us.

Why do we pray?  There are many reasons but perhaps the best is provided by C.S. Lewis, the author of widely read children’s books such as The Narnia Chronicles that includes The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Lewis wrote many novels for adults and books about our Christian faith.  The 1993 movie Shadowlands tells Lewis’ story focusing on his relationship with his wife, Joy Gresham.

After Joy is diagnosed with cancer, the couple marry.  The movie has us witness their love, their pain, their grief, their struggles with faith and God.  Eventually Joy dies.  At one point in the story a friend says to Lewis, “I know how hard you’ve been praying to ask God to answer your prayers.” Lewis replies, “That’s not why I pray. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless.  I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.   It doesn’t change God, it changes me.”

How does prayer change us?  Through prayer the Holy Spirit gives us more courage, confidence, strength, and hope.  An example is provided in our Gospel reading.
 

We hear about the unjust judge who “neither feared God nor respected any human being.” That’s not the sort of judge any of us would want hearing our case in court!  He is unjust.  He has no compassion.

There’s the widow who kept going to him and asking for a just decision against her adversary.  For a long time the judge was unwilling to hear her plea but eventually he thought “…because this widow keeps bothering me.  I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.”

The widow was confident.   She had courage.   She had hope.  She wouldn’t give up.  And, we shouldn’t either.  We should never cease praying that God hold us up when we trip, when we are hurting.  We want, we need God to support us.

Our first reading makes this point about support.  Moses was standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in his hand.  As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, the battle went against Israel. Moses’ hands grew tired so Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other.  As with Moses and his staff, God supports us, changes us, and helps us get the better of our adversaries we call loneliness, fear, anger, or disease.

Through prayer we call on God for a lot of things.  Today’s Mass provides examples.  We have our opening prayer and our prayer of the faithful with intentions.   We have the “Our Father.” We have the Eucharistic prayer.   We have the closing prayer.  We expect God to be listening like the widow pestering the judge for help.

We end with this thought.  Johnny had been misbehaving and was sent to his room.   After a while he emerged and told his mother that he had thought it over and then he said a prayer. "Fine", said his very pleased mother. "If you ask God to help you not misbehave, God will help you."  "Oh, I didn't ask God to help me not misbehave," said Johnny.  "I asked God to help you put up with me."

The point of this story is that God has to put up with all of us – with our complaints, bad behavior, and unreasonable, often impossible requests – sometimes demands.  Perhaps our best and repeated prayer – unlike that of the widow confronting the unjust judge – should simply be one of thanksgiving and a prayer for change: “Thank you God for remaining with us and still loving us even though we are the most troublesome and unruly of all your creation.  Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.  Help us to pray without becoming weary."

Deacon David Pierce