Homily on Luke
18:1–8 (29th Sunday Ordinary time Year C)
(The Parable of the Persistent Widow)
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us the
parable of the persistent widow who refuses to give up in her plea for justice.
She keeps knocking, she keeps asking,
she keeps pressing forward, until even an unjust judge finally gives in.
And Jesus tells us this parable as
Saint Luke says, “to remind us that we should pray always and never lose
heart.”
What a message for us today—pray
always and never lose heart.
Think about the widow for a moment.
She had no power, no influence, no
wealth, no position.
In her society, she was among the most
vulnerable.
Yet what she had was perseverance.
She simply would not give up.
And in the end, she wore down even a
corrupt judge.
Now if that’s true with a human judge
who has no care for God, how much more will our loving Father hear our cries?
Jesus asks, “And will not God bring
about justice for His chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night?
Will He keep putting them off?”
The answer, of course, is no.
God hears. God cares. God answers.
But sometimes, like the widow, we are
called to be persistent, to not give up when prayers seem unanswered, to trust
that God is at work in ways we cannot yet see.
Let me share a story.
There was a young mother whose teenage
son had wandered far from the Church.
He was angry, rebellious, and
determined to live his own way.
She prayed for him every night,
sometimes with tears, sometimes with doubts, but always with persistence.
For years, nothing seemed to change.
In fact, things even seemed to get
worse.
Friends told her, “Maybe you should
just stop worrying.
Maybe this is just who he is now.”
But she couldn’t stop.
She believed that God loved her son
more than she did, and so she kept praying.
After nearly fifteen years, her son
one day surprised her by saying he wanted to go to Mass.
Something had stirred in his heart.
Slowly, he returned not only to faith,
but eventually even discerned a call to the priesthood.
That son was St. Augustine.
And that praying mother was St.
Monica—whose persistence, whose refusal to give up, changed the course of the
Church and the world.
Her prayers echo the widow’s
persistence in the Gospel.
She is a living reminder of Jesus’
words: “Pray always and never lose heart.”
And I think this is where the Gospel
meets our lives.
How often do we pray for something—a
healing, a conversion, a new job, the strength to carry a cross—and when the
answer doesn’t come quickly, we begin to doubt.
We start to think maybe God doesn’t
hear, maybe God doesn’t care.
But faith is not about instant
answers.
Faith is about relationship.
To keep praying is to keep trusting.
To keep praying is to keep holding on,
even in the silence.
Prayer doesn’t always change God’s
timing, but it always changes us—it keeps our hearts open, it strengthens us,
it deepens our faith.
And at the end of the Gospel, Jesus
asks a piercing question:
“When the Son of Man comes, will He
find faith on earth?”
That’s the real heart of the parable.
Will He find people who keep trusting,
who keep praying, who keep believing, even when life is hard and answers are
slow?
So today, brothers and sisters, let us
hear Jesus’ encouragement:
Don’t give up.
Don’t stop praying.
If you’ve been praying for a child, a
spouse, a friend—keep praying.
If you’ve been praying for
healing—keep praying.
If you’ve been praying for guidance,
for peace, for strength—keep praying.
Be like the persistent widow.
Be like St. Monica.
Pray always and never lose heart.
Because the God who loves us hears
every prayer,
treasures every tear,
and in His time and His way, He will
answer.
Amen.
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