Persistent Faith; Persistent Prayer

"There's this emperor, and he asks this shepherd's boy... 'How many seconds in eternity?' And the shepherd's boy says... 'There's this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it. Every hundred years, a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain. And when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed.' You must think that's a hell of a long time. Personally, I think that's a hell of a bird."

I got that story from an episode of Doctor Who, in case you’re wondering! And I am telling it to begin with today as an illustration of persistence.

Persistence is the word – the virtue – with which we are presented today. Abraham, our father in faith, shows us what this prayer looks like. In his familiar conversation with the Lord, he feels it necessary to continue to ask the same questions – to persist in his advocacy for the people Sodom and Gomorrah. He even feels a little weird about it! “See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord, though I am but dust and ashes!” However, that persistent prayer is received and even answered by God; He is not annoyed or angered. Rather, God patiently responds to His beloved Abraham.

This is the same attitude that Jesus encourages in the Gospel. “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  His example of the man coming to his neighbor to borrow bread is not meant to make us identify with the resistant homeowner; but rather to be like the annoying neighbor who comes in the middle of the night and bothers him!

The Greek words that Luke uses in this Gospel today are instructive – not because of their meaning, but because of their tense and mood (that’s something for you grammar Nazis out there!). When Jesus teaches us to pray, He says “give us each day our daily bread… forgive us … as we forgive everyone …”. All of these verbs are in a special tense in Greek called the aorist tense. We don’t really have it in English. However, it conveys the sense of an ongoing action rather than a ”one-and-done” thing. So, what Jesus is saying is “give us – and keep on giving us…” “forgive – and keep forgiving us…” “as we keep on forgiving others…” Again, the idea of persistence is given, and as God is persistently good, so we are called to persistently call upon Him – and to persistently imitate Him!

But, is this our usual attitude in prayer? Are we as persistent as our faith challenges us to be? Or, do we give up at the first sign of resistance or at the first appearance of an unanswered prayer? Very often, people may find themselves frustrated in prayer or in faith – not getting what they want, or they feel that they deserve – and the reaction is to write God off, to lose faith, to stop praying or asking. Has that ever happened to you? It has to me! I am an impatient pray-er! God very infrequently keeps to the schedule that I give Him.

However, this is not the attitude that we are encouraged to have. Jesus calls us to ask – and to keep asking; to knock – and to keep knocking! How long to I have to wait for my prayers to come true? How long did my parents pray for their kids to be safe and successful? How long have immigrant families prayed for a safe home and the dignity of work and acceptance? How long have gay Catholics been longing for openness and compassion from the Church? How long before my brothers return to the practice of our family’s faith? How long before our addict child finds the healing and wholeness that she deserves? How long does it take to get to where God wants us to be?

How long must I pray?

At least one more time!

Over time, that diamond mountain was eventually chiseled away by that bird’s visit. It would seem to take forever – and that’s a hell of a long time. It’s a hell of a long time to pray in our relationship with our Good Father.

It takes one hell of a faith.

Thanks be to God that this is the faith that Jesus gives us. Keep praying; it’s your job!