GOSPEL: LK 18:1-8
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JESUS told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, ‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’” The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
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Commenting on this Gospel about the widow who insistently implores the corrupt judge to give her justice, Pope Francis notes it manifests that God always wishes to answer his people’s needs. For Francis, “knocking, asking, complaining of many problems, many sufferings, and asking the Lord to free us from those sufferings, those sins, those problems,” is actually our “human strength.” “Prayer, even the humblest person’s prayer” is powerful, because if God has a weakness, Francis explains, it is for people’s prayer. “It’s God’s weakness. The Lord is only weak about this.”
This Gospel gives us food for thought about “God’s power, which is so clear, so strong.” Francis notes that the Church speaks about it especially at Christmas time, because “the culmination of God’s power, God’s salvation, was the incarnation of the Word.” “When darkness and sin covered the world, God’s Word leapt from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed.” Indeed, for Pope Francis, “the incarnation of the Word was the high point of our salvation.”
We are to be “like the widow: praying, asking, knocking at the door of God’s heart – every day.”
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SOURCE: “366 Days with the Lord 2020,” ST. PAULS, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; Fax 632-895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.
