Luke 12: 13 - 21

Sunday's readings offer various aspects of prayer for our consideration. There is the spiritual discipline of prayer itself, which is essential to the life of the disciple: there is the communal dimension of prayer; and there is the ministerial commitment that is born of prayer. Our personal prayer must be persistent. Like Moses in the first reading and the woman in the gospel reading, we must be ceaseless in our prayer, not discouraged by difficulties that we might have to face. 

A feature of the gospel of Luke is that the lowly and poor – represented here by the widow – are those who recognise their own condition and call on the mercy of God to lift them up. Jesus says that God will see justice done to those who cry out for God’s help. Jesus’ final comment about finding any faith on earth is a reminder that human beings have a tendency to think they can solve all their own problems and forget that they need God’s action in their lives. The faithful in the gospel of Luke are those who know that they are in need of God’s mercy and love and call out for it.

It is not God who needs our prayers, but we who have to recognise, through prayer, our need for God’s mercy and gracious love. The constancy of prayer is not to convince God but to remind ourselves of our dependence upon God.