Don Bosco Philippines South Province

Homily on the 29th Sunday in OT, 16 Oct 2022, MHC Chapel, Maryville Subd., Talamban

We Filipinos are known to be a very religious people. This is manifested in our being prayerful, especially in our being strongly devoted to Senyor Sto. Nino (and the different images of our Lord), to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to so many of our favorite patron saints. On Sundays our churches are filled to overflowing. And despite the pandemic we continue to attend online Masses even from our homes or offices. A survey conducted several years ago among Filipino Catholic youth verified this very positive trait of ours. In that survey one of the questions asked from them was: “How do you express your Catholic faith?” And surprisingly the top most answer of the young people was PRAYING which got around 88% of the respondents. This clearly shows that we Filipinos are indeed very religious, because more than half of the youth respondents still spend time to pray.

Isn’t it true that seven days makes one week. Today the Lord says, seven days without prayer makes one weak (spelled as W-E-A-K). Yes, while many of us are still very prayerful despite our ups and downs, some have totally given up praying. I know of friends who lament that their spouses are no longer praying and going to Mass as before. Others ask advice how they could convince their grown up kids to go back to church, or join them in their family Rosary. It is really sad to say that there are Catholics even among our loved ones who do not pray anymore because they no longer believe or because they have just grown tired of praying for nothing. This sad situation has worsened especially during this long period of the pandemic. And I guess we ourselves feel at times that our prayers seem to be useless because we do not seem to obtain what we are asking for.

We are now on the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Gospel today presents to us Jesus encouraging us never to get tired of praying. Were his fellow Jews also getting tired of praying during his time? The Jews were also known to be a very religious and God-fearing people. In fact they pray, not once or twice but seven times a day – at dawn, at sunrise, in midmorning, at noon, at mid-afternoon, in the evening and finally at night before they sleep. However, Jesus must have observed that some, if not many, were no longer devout and consistent in their practices of piety. Some have probably stopped joining the Jewish community in their weekly worship at the synagogue. I guess it is in this context that Jesus narrated to his disciples the parable we have heard today.

The parable is about a widow who kept asking the judge to make sure justice is served rightly to her against her adversary. She finally obtained justice not because of her power, wealth or popularity, which she did not have, but because of her perseverance, her “annoying” perseverance. Hindi po ba, sa tuwing may lumalapit na pulubi sa atin at hindi natin binibigyan ng pera dahil pinagbabawal ito ng batas ayon sa Anti-mendicancy law of 1978, bibigyan pa rin natin ng barya para umalis na sya at hindi na nila tayo kulitin pa? Ganyan din ang gusto ng Panginoon sa tuwing tayo ay nagdarasal. This is exactly what Jesus wants to tell us. We should not get tired of praying and asking God what we need or what we want to the point of being “makulit”. For this kind of “kakulitan” is very pleasing to him. So, if we strive to persevere in our persistent prayer we will soon obtain what we are asking for.

The first reading from the book of Exodus demonstrates this even more graphically. Moses kept raising his hands in prayer asking God to obtain for them victory in their battle against Amalek and his troops. As long as his hands were raised towards the heavens, Joshua and the Israelites were winning the battle. But every time Moses would lower his hands because he was getting tired of praying Joshua and his men would be losing the fight against their enemies. Let us therefore strive to persevere in prayer so that we may win every single battle against evil in our lives and obtain the grace we are asking for. Let us always keep in mind the PPP formula of Jesus, not public-private-partnership, but the power of persevering prayer. [Could you please repeat to me Jesus’ version of PPP: the power of persevering prayer. Kindly tell that to the one beside you.]

Allow me to conclude with a story of another widow, this time it is a true story. Lulu is a widow who suffered from a stroke after her husband died. The stroke was so bad that the right side of her body got paralyzed and her speech slurred. She kept praying to the Lord to heal her and grant her full recovery. But after some years, despite her rehab and many fervent prayers, she still was unable to walk and talk normally. She cried to the Lord every time she prayed asking why her prayers were not being granted even if her intention to get healed was not for herself but for the Church, as she missed serving actively in their parish.

One day someone came to pay her a visit and, seeing her pitiful situation, suggested that the Lord probably had something better for her. And having known that the elderly woman had learned to write using her left hand, he recommended that she should start writing to other sick people in their parish. She took the advice and started scribbling some words on a pad paper until she was able to finish her letter. Through the lay minister who brings her communion, she sent her first letter to the sick person living in the next block. To her big surprise after a week or so, she got a reply from her new found pen pal thanking her for the heart-warming letter. She then wrote a second letter, then a third. She wrote also to other sick people within the parish. And after some months she was no longer asking the Lord for her own healing. Why? It is because she finally realized the Lord actually wanted for her something better, her involvement to a new ministry of caring for sick through letter writing.

May we be inspired by today’s liturgy to keep on praying without getting weary, and more importantly to pray not so much that God may do our will, but that we may do the will of our Father in heaven. And let us not forget Jesus’ better version of PPP. GiGsss!

P.S. Lulu’s story is actually the story of my mom who, after learning to accept her paralysis and wrote hundreds of letters, passed away in 2009. May God bless her beautiful soul.

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