DON’T GIVE UP PRAYING OCTOBER 19, 2025

Our Lord gives a very graphic image of persistence in prayer in the Gospel today: He talks about a woman with a claim against her neighbour who nags and hectors away until she gets what she wants from an unjust judge who is looking for an easy life.

     Of course, Our Lord is not saying that this is how things should be. He is using this image to show that if we can get things we are entitled to by sheer perseverance, and from an unjust judge—how much more can we hope to get what we need from a loving and just Father, God our Lord?

However, Our Lord wants us to understand that, even though God is just, and loves us so much that He wants to give us what is necessary for our good, nevertheless, we too, like the woman in His image, must expect to be persistent in making our prayers to Him even for what is good.

     Why should this be? God our Father and His Son, Our Lord, want us to pray not just to get what we want from them but because praying itself is a good thing. Unlike the case of the woman and the unjust judge, where the pestering is only the means to the end she wants, prayer is totally unlike that. Prayer is the expression and the means of deepening a right relationship with Our Lord, and with our heavenly Father.     

>> Fr. Paul Dobson