“Prayer is a Necessity" - 29th Sunday Homily

Necessity.

That's the word that jumped out at me.

Stay with me all week, looking at this gospel.

Jesus tells a parable to talk about the necessity of prayer.

The parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge.

Think about what is a necessity in life.

Eating, sleeping, brushing your teeth, taking care of your body, your health, all the stuff we do day and night that we absolutely have to do.

Well, phones of course, a necessity day and night.

Sorry about that.

That's absolute necessity.

But we think about security, protection, like our home security.

Is there anything we're more vigilant about than that?

The necessity for Moses to keep his arms raised in the battle of the Israelites, wherever the Amalekites.

Now it's for the protection of Israel.

In that instance, it's the necessity of his prayer.

He's praying.

What other person reminds you that with his arms raised like this, Jesus Christ on the cross, necessary for our eternal protection and salvation?

So to throw prayer into the mix of our necessities, Jesus tells this parable.

And what struck me is where I was the first part of my life.

think most of us at one time or another might see prayer as something nice to do for God.

I reached out to God today, look at me, I'm a good Catholic, good person, but not a necessity.

Not like eating or drinking or the phone.

But he's insisting that yeah, prayer is necessary.

The necessity of prayer, to pray always without becoming weary.

Like Moses got weary.

We all get weary sometimes with our prayer.

But there they were to help him to get through it.

Because it was necessary.

You have to keep your arms up.

You got to pray, Moses, and keep us protected, keep us safe in battle.

We look at this widow, it wasn't just a nice thing for her to do.

She had to do it, regulate with this unjust judge.

Do we see our prayer life in the same way?

Do other people come to us with their prayer intentions?

know, serious things going on in our world, serious things going on in our parish.

We got two funerals this week.

and people are talking and they're supporting and they're praying.

There's a lot of stuff going on.

Do people come to you with their most serious intentions?

Do they see you as someone like her, the widow, who's going to not back off, be totally persistent, cry out to God day and night?

It's an awesome thing to live in that house right over there, the rectory, and see cars coming in hour after hour, people going to the chapel.

Day and night crying out to God with their petitions.

but also to be in relationship.

Another necessity of life is love with your family.

Can imagine taking a day off from that?

I know people do.

I don't mean to be dumb, naive, but it causes huge problems when you take a day off from loving your spouse or your kids.

If I wasn't here tonight watching the Commander's game, I think you'd understand, right?

It's a Dallas game.

But you'd be a little ticked if you came to Mass like, I'm taking the night off, folks.

Where's the love, man?

Day and night, necessity, we have them in our lives.

Jesus is throwing prayer into the mix.

Prayer is necessary.

I say it's like brushing your teeth.

To make it that kind of a habit it's automatic, day and night.