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SUNDAY SCRIPTURES FOR OCTOBER 16 | Becoming truly persistent and faithful in our prayers

Let’s hold our arms up in prayer as we faithfully come to God with our joys, sorrows and challenges

In a reading from the Book of Exodus on the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we have an incredible image of persistent intercessory prayer. Moses is praying for his people as they battle to sustain the nation. He lifts his arms in prayer and becomes tired due to the duration. He couldn’t make it through his intercessory prayer without the steady companionship of Aaron and Hur, even needing to sit on a stone as he prayed.

I am sure that we have all wished and hoped for something to be true, before bringing it to God in prayer. Sometimes we wait for days, weeks, months or years. We may become tired and weary of praying, sometimes even questioning whether God is paying attention to us.

In our persistent prayer, we realize that many things in life are not in our control. Sometimes even our deepest wishes and hopes are outside our influence and power. We may wonder why we should bother to pray. If we imagine prayer to be an intimate conversation with one we love and one who loves us, however, why wouldn’t we continue to speak to God about what is most important to us? Like other relationships in our lives, sometimes we quit talking to someone when we don’t get our way or when something seems to be taking too long. True love, intimacy and relationship are marked by faithfulness and persistence, not by stubbornness or pouting. With those we truly love, we bring every part of ourselves, including disappointments and longings.

God loves us eternally and unconditionally. We are taken into God’s heart, “loved beyond measure,” and God’s Word is written in our hearts. In our relationship with God, we aren’t promised that we will get everything we want or that everything in life will go our way. So much of any relationship is based on trust and faithfulness. It seems to help our faithfulness if we have a sense of gratitude for what God has done with and for us. Leaving behind our sense of entitlement, we can nurture a sense of blessedness that will bring us more honestly to God. We can assume from the beginning that God has the best intentions for us and those we love. God is not intending to hurt us or make us suffer.

In light of these Scriptures this weekend, let’s examine the pattern of our prayer life. Are we truly persistent and faithful in our prayers, or do we only go to God with the most urgent situations or as a last resort? We all know how it feels to be in a relationship where people come to us only when they want something or when they’re in trouble. That kind of relationship is imbalanced and is based on urgency rather than intimacy and love. How could you establish a more persistent and faithful pattern of prayer? How could you and I experience the blessedness of our own lives and more readily bring a sense of gratitude back to God? How might we be more able to trust God’s wisdom than we trust our own? During this time of uncertainty and change in our archdiocese, are we now bringing God only our anger and disappointment, or have we brought God our gratitude for everything that has been provided for us through the years?

Let us help each other hold our arms up in prayer as we faithfully come to God with our joys, sorrows, blessings and challenges. May we always come to God in faithfulness and love, even in the toughest situations.

Father Donald Wester is pastor of All Saints Parish in St. Peters.

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