Persistence in Prayer

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time October 19, 2025

Exodus 17:8-13

Psalm 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8

2 Timothy 3:14-4:2

Hebrews 4:12

Luke 18:1-8

[https://youtu.be/KLySY21rRoc]

Our readings this weekend, and even next weekend, talk about prayer.

This weekend's readings, we're talking about persevering and persistence in prayer. So with that, yesterday I was at Men's Scripture Study where we were talking about prayer. And I shared a couple of personal stories I'm going to share with you today, regarding prayer and the effects of prayer, even in my own life, or my family's life.

So when I was in the seminary, I found out as I was getting ready to graduate from seminary college, that the diocese wanted to send me to Notre Dame to study canon law in hopes that I would be a canon lawyer for the diocese. I did not like that idea. So I asked to take a sabbatical to pray about it and discern whether this was still my vocation.

And in that process, my mom encouraged me, “while you're on this break, take some time to maybe date a girl or two.” So I did. I went out and I joined a young adult group from our parish. And I went out with a couple of ladies my age. And I had a lot of bad experiences. In fact, the very last one that I dated, we were doing a group date. I picked her up in my nice Nissan truck, four-wheel drive and everything nice and white. And she came into my truck, and we started to drive to the pizza place where we're going to meet our friends. And she started bawling. I go, Oh my gosh, what's wrong? What's going on? And she told me that she thinks she got pregnant by her best friend's boyfriend. And I told myself this is the icing on the cake. God, if this is your way of telling me that marriage is not for me, and that I need to go back to the seminary, fine, I get it. However, if it's not for me and I'm to find a wife and get married, I want a woman and I had a huge list of requirements. I want her to be Hispanic. I want her to be beautiful. I want her to be intelligent. You know, I want her to be pure and chaste. I had all these things that I prayed for.

Now previously, three years before I had already met Bonnie, but we did not like each other. No! So, when I called her because I was selling Cutco knives and made an appointment, that was the Lord telling me, you need to make a phone call. I've got something for you. And she met all the criteria that I prayed for. So, within a week, I told her, I love you, marry me. She said, no. She said, no! But the next day she called me. She says, you know what? I changed my mind. I do love you too. But I'm in college and we need to wait. So we didn't get married till five years later. Come Monday will be our 35th anniversary from that waiting of five years.

Now, here's the moral of the story. God gave me everything I asked for on the list. But the one thing I forgot, that if he gave me this woman, I wanted to marry her right away.  So He says “you're waiting, guy. Not your time, my time!” Lesson learned.

The second story has to do with our two daughters. My wife and I, when we were dating and when we first got married, we wanted a large family. Hmmm 12, 13 kids, somewhere around there. That was the goal. That was the hope. God had other plans. We were practicing natural family planning. And in that process, well, sometimes we fudged. And so we got pregnant and voila, Alyssa. But towards the end of the pregnancy, Bonnie struggled with the pregnancy. She was a teacher. She had to take some time off, be bedridden and things of that nature. And she even had postpartum issues after delivery. So we prayed about Bonnie's health and whether the Lord really needed us to have more than one child.

When we moved up here to the greater St. Louis area, became a part of this parish, we were constantly struggling with that. And at some point Alyssa came to us and she says, “I want a sibling. I want someone that I can grow up with and love and be my sister.”  So we told her, well, let's pray about it. So she did. She had a little prayer table and she went and she would pray, pray, pray. And Bonnie and I prayed too. We decided, let's try. So we got pregnant a second time. But then shortly after, we had a miscarriage. And so again, we started to think, is this God telling us that we are a one child family? I don't know. But let's be open to it. Let's be open to what God has for us. We got pregnant a third time. And this is where Charity comes into the picture. And her due date was sometime in May.

Alyssa goes back to her little prayer altar and she says, “I want my sister to be born in the same month as me so we can celebrate our birthdays together.” We told her, mija that's not going to happen because, you know, she'd have to be born at least six weeks early for that to happen.  And that's not a good thing. “I don't care. God's going to give me my sister when I...” Okay, no. Well, guess what? Bonnie's water broke six weeks early. We rushed to the hospital. She had to get injections to stop the contractions. And they had to put medicine into Charity in the womb, you know, steroids to help her lungs develop before she was delivered. And she was in the NICU for several days before we could take her home. We went home and we told Alyssa, from now on, when you want to pray, ask permission first of what you're asking for. We'll tell you whether to pray for it or not. Lesson number two.

All right. Third experience I want to share. I love to go to the youth conference down in Springfield as a prayer minister. We do a lot of praying with the youth, the teens, the chaperones, the group leaders, even priests and deacons they come up and ask for prayers and we pray with them. So one weekend, Saturday night, you know, the big night is going on. And one of the other deacons who was in the prayer ministry team with me, comes up to me and said: “Hey, Philip. I have a gentleman here from my parish, ICD, who is asking for prayers. Can you come with me?” And I said, sure.

And we stepped out of the arena to a more secluded, quiet place where we could hear each other. And the gentleman was concerned because he had injured his shoulder and was in severe pain that weekend. And so that night he was literally almost in tears from the pain that he was having. And he simply asked, “I want God to take away my pain.” He didn't say, I want God to heal me. He said, “I want God to take away my pain so that tomorrow I can be present with these teens that I brought to the youth conference, and I can safely drive them home.” So we did, we prayed. Put our arms on him. ~Now back when I was in the seminary, I was graced to receive the gift of tongues. It's a prayer language.~ So I started to pray in tongues over this gentleman. And I was moved with emotion, and I was feeling the warmth and the heat of God's love. And I even broke down crying as I was praying with this man. And then I hugged him. [me crying & sniffling] I cry a lot! I did and I hugged him. And I asked for healing. And the interesting thing, when we look at our Gospel Acclamation today, it says here: “The word of God is living and effective, discerning reflections and thoughts of the heart.” This man's heart. It was not for himself, but for the children.

The very next day, Sunday morning comes, and he's running into the arena waving his arms. Look, Philip, look, no pain, no pain! He had no pain. That whole day, he had no pain. That afternoon, that evening, he drove the teens home. The next morning on Monday, the pain came back. Tuesday, he went to the doctor. He had to have surgery for his shoulder. But for that period of time, because of his heart, God heard. Didn't heal him, but took away the pain! That's the beauty of persistent prayer and a prayer that comes pure from the heart with the right desire. And God knows that.

And so when we're looking at our scripture readings today, in our very first reading, we got Moses, and he's a prefigurement of Jesus, the Messiah. Now, this is my walking stick [grab my walking stick]. Got a little wolf on it. Moses probably had a real huge shepherd's staff because he was a shepherd. When he encountered God, he was shepherding sheep. And he went up to the mountain with his shepherd's staff. And when he led the people out of Egypt, it was because of the staff of God that he used to make miracles happen. To break down Pharaoh, to part the waters of the sea, and to bring water from a rock. And so, this was a symbol of God, this shepherd's staff, God's staff.

When they were crossing the desert to try to get to the promised land, they were encountered by another Bedouin tribe who challenged them. They didn't really want to have to deal with fighting anybody, but they needed to in order to get to their destination. So Moses says, I'm going to set myself up on a hill. You go and you fight. I'll pray. And look at that symbol. Jesus went up on Mount Calvary, a hill. Jesus took his shepherd's staff, the cross [pointing to the Crucifix behind the Altar].

And so Moses goes up [I walk up to the top step of the sanctuary area]. And I have Aaron and Hur come here [the two Altar Boys come up]. One on either side. As Moses got tired and was holding the staff, they held his arms to keep him strong. We don't pray alone. We pray to God, but we pray as a community with one another, supporting each other in our prayer. With Moses as a prefigurement of Jesus. That's his shepherd's cross with his arms stretched out, interceding for us so that we may enter into heaven so that he can defeat evil and defeat death. And he did!

And so that's why he's telling his disciples today, persevere in prayer like this woman, this widow. And you know what's interesting about the story of the widow, when this judge says, “lest this woman strikes me”, that actually means, from a Hebrew idiom, before she gives me a black eye. “I don't want a black eye. I won't look good with a black eye. I don't want a black eye. I'll give her a just judgement.”

But God's not selfish. God's loving. He's more loving than this judge. So, this judge is not a figure of God, but the woman is a figure of us being persistent in our prayer. Now what God calls us to…. and to have Jesus continue to intercede for us on the cross. And the fruit of the cross is what we celebrate here, the sacrifice on the Altar. So we gather together to worship and to pray as a family to ask Jesus to continue to intercede for us. On behalf of us.

[Pause - Picking up a Bible]

I love this Bible. It's written to my level. It's a Catholic youth Bible. And there's a prayer in here I want to close with. With regards to this reading, this is what the prayer is encouraging our young to pray as we think about the scripture passage. But it's important for us to listen to this as well:

“Dear God. Jesus had to remind people to pray always and not to lose hope when faced with injustice. I need to hear that too. Sometimes it seems like I pray and pray, but you're not answering. I know that I have to be willing to look and listen for your response. I know that I have to pray always, not just in times of need. I know I need to share my daily life with you. Help me to do these things, I know I need to do. Help me to pray Lord. Amen.

[This was a live recording Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. and then post edited]