Q uite often we face difficult, hard, challenging circumstances and seek the way to overcome them, to get justice. How to get justice in this context? We have to ask for it! How to ask for it? By constantly and in a steady manner communicating our just demand. And by being proactive. God helps those who help themselves.  Every day. With patience. With respect. With confidence that our request will be heard. There is no place to get discouraged. There is plenty of room to pray again!

Memorial of St. Joseph Pignatelli

Wisdom 18:14-16; 19:6-9

Psalm 105:2-3, 36-37, 42-43

L uke 18:1-8 And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.  (2) He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man; (3) and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, `Vindicate me against my adversary.'  (4) For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, `Though I neither fear God nor regard man, (5) yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.'" (6) And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. (7) And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? (8) I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Meditation by Patricia Soto (Creighton)

Perseverance Empowers Me, You, Us

“The cloud overshadowed their camp;

and out of what had before been water,

dry land was seen emerging:

Out of the Red Sea an unimpeded road,

and a grassy plain out of the mighty flood.

Over this crossed the whole nation sheltered by your hand,”

“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”

¡El poder de la oración! I have started my reflection with a sentence in my mother tongue. Why? Because I am writing these lines from my heart, as it beats peacefully and gladly remembering the words of Father Jorge (R.I.P.), our Sunday mass priest during my childhood. I go back into my memories to see and hear him talking about the power of prayer (el poder de la oración): the transformative power of prayer as a hallmark of our faith.

When I was kid I loved reading the stories in the Old Testament and so I was marveled thinking that there could be seawaters colored in red. When I was in college I wanted to know if indeed such phenomenon of redistribution of a body of water to let a walkable crossing had a scientific explanation. Now that more years have passed by I focus not on the color of the seawater nor the science of the crossing in the Red Sea. This time I read in the Scripture a metaphor of justice, of what is morally right:  Justice to all. Justice to people who deserve it and persistently search for it.  Justice at the right time.

I have built this interpretation by linking the crossing of the Red Sea to the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. The link I visualize relates to common situations in our daily life: quite often we face difficult, hard, challenging circumstances and seek the way to overcome them, to get justice. How to get justice in this context? We have to ask for it! How to ask for it? By constantly and in a steady manner communicating our just demand. And by being proactive. God helps those who help themselves. The deep belief that our request is fair and consistent with our faith and ethics gives more than enough reason to pray for it. To truly and honestly pray for it. Every day. With patience. With respect. With confidence that our request will be heard. There is no place to get discouraged. There is plenty of room to pray again!

Scripture and life have taught me that God listens to perseverant people, to those who wholeheartedly and persistently pray, to those whose actions are aligned with and in support of their prayers. God listens again. God gives justice. And the sense of praying with determination, of acting according and in pursuit of our request and eventually getting what is fair empowers our actions and decisions to go ahead with our lives, with our ideas, with our responsibilities, with our dreams.

Supplementary Reading

of THINGS AND mIRAClES

Jesus said to him in reply, 'What do you want me to do for you?' The blind man replied to him, 'Master, I want to see.' – Mark 10:51

B ad things happen. One day, my 24-year-old nephew, PJ, got really sick. MRI results revealed a blood clot the size of a golf ball. His attending physicians recommended immediate operation. The cost of operation: P1.5 million!

Some things we cause to happen. Before signing the consent for the operation, I asked my sister that we pray over PJ and ask the Lord in a very specific way that he be given a new brain. We also prayed that he wouldn’t need to be operated on since we couldn’t afford it.

Miracles also happen. First, we were able to get a reservation under a charity ward in a different hospital that handles such cases. Next, the neurosurgeon who worked in that hospital was a long-time friend of my brother-in-law. Then, after an exhaustive and intensive battery of tests in the newhospital, which included an angiogram, the final doctors’ report said there was no need for an operation and that the blood clot had disappeared!

Bad things happen. So do miracles. -- Hermie Morelos

REFLECTION:

Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble. (Philip Melanchthen)

Jesus, You are the God of the Impossible! I put my trust in You.