St James Catholic Church

Persistence and perseverance are the words of today, as each reading teaches the importance of these virtues in carrying out God’s will.  In Exodus, Moses must persist in raising his arms and holding the staff of God in order for Joshua to defeat the enemy in battle.  Paul instructs Timothy to be persistent even when it is inconvenient.  Jesus’ parable features a widow who successfully influences a dishonest judge to render a just verdict because she doesn’t stop trying.

Prayer, whether short or lengthy, rote or spontaneous, is what keeps us connected to God.  It is no accident that Jesus spends a lot of time praying to the Father.  Not only did he teach his disciples how to pray, he showed them that he prayed, and prayed often.  Persistent prayer will see to it that justice is done for us and God’s people.  Persistent prayer helps us to understand and accept God’s will.  Persistent prayer ensures that there will indeed be faith on earth when the Son of Man comes again.

Unfortunately, patience is a difficult virtue to exercise, especially for me.  We expect to get what we want immediately.  Jesus says that God will “see to it that justice is done for them speedily.”  But speedily in what sense?  The disciples expected that Jesus would return before they died.  But here we are, two thousand years later, still waiting.    The answer is that God’s time is not our time.  If we judge by the expectations of our schedule we will become impatient in a hurry.  We must accept that God’s time demands our patience, and consequently our persistence and perseverance.

Love, Peace, Joy,

Fr. Bob