Today’s Gospel contains perhaps some of the most disturbing words in the entire Bible: ‘When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ Imagine, if you will, how terrible, how awful it would be if, when the Bridegroom comes for his bride, there were in fact no believers on earth, not a single one. Unthinkable, isn’t it? But Jesus’ warning is as clear as day.
We can only truly understand this sober message in the light of the Parable of the Persistent Widow. The parable is all about prayer and its two central pillars: perseverance and persistence. The truth is that in matters regarding faith it is easy to lose heart. There are many waves and undercurrents at work on the high seas of our lives, which threaten to veer us off course so that we lose our way, become stranded and even shipwrecked. The wonderful attribute of the widow was her sheer boldness and confidence in approaching – wait for it – not a just judge but an unjust one. The message of the parable is clear: if an unscrupulous and morally dubious judge can relent towards a dogged and unusually persistent widow, how much more readily will God, the perfect Judge, hear our prayer.
Why does prayer seem so hard at times? Why do we sometimes feel that God does not hear or answer our prayers? The answer is contained in the word ‘feel,’ because living by faith is not the same as living by our feelings. The Spirit helps us in our weakness by teaching us that faith is not rooted on the foundation of our feelings but on the sure rock of Christ. The widow had faith in the unjust judge although she had no reason to. We have faith in God and have every reason to. God is and always will be faithful to his promises but, in truth, we have to cling to the rock. St Francis de Sales said, ‘Let us persevere in prayer at all times. For if our Lord seems not to hear us, it is not because he wants to refuse us. Rather, his purpose is to compel us to cry out louder and to make us more conscious of the greatness of his mercy.’