Saturday of the Thirty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

In the Gospel for today, there is a parable with an odd interaction between a merciless judge and a persistent widow. This parable is not as rich in imagery as maybe the story of the prodigal son or as economic as the parables of the talents. Why are we now getting a judicial lesson from these dramatized characters? Well, I think the Lord wants to give us a lesson on His providence and His Fatherhood.

In this Gospel, we see the gradual opening of the heart of the judge. He goes from completely obstinate to reluctantly attentive to the widow’s pleas. Yet, it is not from sudden compassion, but to make his life more convenient. The widow herself is seeking an injunction not from an unknown party, but an “adversary,” which seems like odd phrasing. I read a blurb from St. Augustine in the “Word on Fire Bible” that characterized this parable as being one about the Lord inviting us to unceasing prayer and petition for our needs. Again, that seems odd to me. Is the merciless judge the Lord and the adversarial widow us? What is the Lord getting at?

I do not think the Lord is cleverly calling Himself an unjust judge and uncaring tyrant. I think He is trying to work through contrasts to prove a point. The hard-hearted judge would only ever consider giving a favorable ruling to the widow because of her long-sustained pleas. By no means is the Lord hard-hearted, but He invites us to pour our hearts out to Him as this needy widow did. I have adversaries that seek my destruction just as the widow’s: my habits of sin, my faults, the fallenness of others and myself, and other maladies. When I pray with this Gospel, I want to heed His invitation to constantly come to Him with these needs and difficulties. He knows them already, but He wants me to truly and sincerely invite Him into my distress. In my own experience, I am most sincere at my weakest. He wants to enter into my life before I get to my weakest, but until I grow in trust of Him, I have to be content with meeting Him in my suffering and sickness.

Additionally, maybe the judge in this parable is not the hard-hearted one. In my own life when I fail to trust God, do I not think of Him as far-off, deaf, and unmoved by my needs and pleas? Who does not fall into such temptations in their view of the Lord? We think the Lord is annoyed or through with loving us. Yet, these are bitter lies from the Devil, the Adversary in our lives. In the end, regardless of the doubt I may have in the Lord’s providence and attentiveness, the effectiveness of my own prayers, or how to flee from the adversaries lurking in the wild, I hope I can rest in His love.

He gives consolation at the end of the parable: “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.” Has He not chosen me to be His son to love Him as He loves me? Is He not my Father who wants nothing but good for me? In the end, I want to keep going to Him as the widow does, because He has chosen me before the foundation of the world to be with Him for all eternity. I want to start living that eternity of communion with Him in each present moment.

Reflection by Jack, seminarian