Justice is available to all of us through prayer and never losing heart

“Jesus told the disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Luke 18.1. This Sunday we hear about the widow unwavering in her appeal to a judge to grant her justice. However, justice is determined by God, as only He knows what is truly best for us. This can be easily lost on us, as we often feel like we are in control of everything. It can be very difficult to relinquish this control. Yet, like the widow who is relentless in her petition, we too should be persistent in prayer. Jesus is letting us know that by praying continually we can be assured of justice as well. The judge in the parable eventually gives in to the woman because he got tired of her coming to him with the request; God never tires of us coming to him. He wants us to be praying to him, to be communication with Him about everything. The judge has no respect for people, God does, and even more than that, He has his love for us. Though God knows our wants and our desires, it is through bringing them to him that we can understand those wants and desires better, why we have them and where they come from, and then we understand ourselves better.  Through prayer, we may find out we need to change something in ourselves; this too is an answer to our prayer, and a way to justice.

But we must do more than pray, Jesus also tells us to not lose heart, and the way we can do that is by being of service to those in our community. We should always remember that we are not alone. In the second reading, we have Paul reminding Timothy and his community that they should “continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writing that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Certainly, yes, we have faith in Christ Jesus; however, we also have faith in our Church. And who is the Church? We the people in the congregation are; the baptised are the church. It is in this Church that we have learned to pray, and in this Church that we have come to know Jesus and His Father and the Holy Spirit, and in this Church through sacred writing we know about salvation. And because we have received all of this through our community, we have responsibility back to the Church. This we do through service. Justice is available to all of us through prayer and never losing heart.

By Serena Shaw
Vocation Team – Oblate Associate
Phone: (780) 231-3066
Email: serenashaw641@gmail.com