Message of Abbot Paul - Saturday 18th November 2023

Yesterday I drove back from Ampleforth to Belmont. In order to avoid heavy traffic, I decided to leave at 6.30am, first making a short detour to Stanbrook Abbey at Wass to deliver a box of books. It was wonderful to enjoy the first light of dawn from Stanbrook and to see the unusual church coming towards me like Noah’s ark floating on the flood of night. I found the drive back much easier than the drive up on Tuesday. Traffic was light and there were no hold ups. I stopped once for something to eat and a short rest. I think it was near Chesterfield. The problem with motorways is that you can never tell where you are. The lives of our Benedictine nuns are dedicated in a very special and intensive way to contemplative prayer and we thank God for their vocation.

 

Connected with that thought is today’s Gospel reading from Luke (Lk 18: 1-8), which begins: “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart.” How important this teaching is and it comes from Jesus himself. We have a real need to pray continually and, in that prayer, never to lose heart. Interestingly enough, the parable is about an unjust judge and a widow. “There was a judge in a certain town who had neither fear of God nor respect for man. In the same town there was a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘Maybe I have neither fear of God nor respect for man, but since she keeps pestering me I must give this widow her just rights, or she will persist in coming and worry me to death.”’

 

God, however, is not an unjust judge, so it’s best not to look too closely at the details. The point is that perseverance in prayer will always be rewarded, even if you have to wait a long time. But what does Jesus say? Luke tells us. “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?” God might delay at times in answering our prayer and his answer might not be the one we’re expecting, but God will see justice done. It can be dangerous, of course, to pray: God often gives us what we’ve asked for when we no longer want it. A good maxim is not to pray for something unless you really want it. Jesus’ final thought is unexpectedly shocking, “When the Son of Man comes will he find any faith on earth?” What can he mean? Why does he say that? What do you think?