Are you an easy prey to despair and discouragement when you don’t get immediate results? - Daily Reflections November 14,2015

PRAY INCESSANTLY   The Gospel today teaches about the importance of praying without getting weary. The main protagonist is a persistent widow. She pleaded her case to the judge who was described as dishonest and a “respecter of no God and man.” He does not listen to anyone but himself. For a long time, the judge denied her cause. But she kept pestering the judge. Wearied by the widow’s perseverance, he finally gave in to her request. In the end, the powerful judge lost and the powerless widow prevailed. As Fr. Patrick Peyton always says, “Prayer is the strength of man and the weakness of God.”        But what does it mean to persevere in prayer? We persevere in prayer not in a spirit of arrogance, as if God owes us and there is nothing He can do “against” our prayer. A persevering prayer is the prayer of a trusting child who, in spite of his desires, leaves room for God to be God. Trust is an important element of persevering prayer.        To persevere in prayer also means I do not simply stay in the chapel and kneel my knees to numbness. It means to work for what I am asking and to keep on working for it even if I do not see immediate results. In these times of instant results at the flick of a finger, waiting and working for results is a lost art. The answer to our prayers can sometimes take a lifetime — sometimes even beyond our lifetime. The  postles of Jesus, and Paul as well, labored for the spread of the Gospel. It happened long after their lifetime. Ninoy Aquino dreamt of restoring democracy in the Philippines — it happened long after his assassination. These models of perseverance give credence to the adage: To persevere means to live for our dreams. But it also means readiness to die for our dreams.        To weary our God with our prayers is not to show that we are more powerful than Him. Rather, it is to profess that in everything and at all times, may His will be done, in His own gracious way, in His own proper time. Fr. Joel Jason   REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Are you an easy prey to despair and discouragement when you don’t get immediate results?   Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened unto you. Amen.