Fr Jack SJ MD: 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ex 17:8-13

Ps 121

2 Tm 3:14-4:2

Lk 18:1-8

The Doors released an album titled “The Soft Parade” in July of 1969. Critics do not consider it one of their best but, for better or worse it was, along with the soundtrack from Easy Rider, the background music for my sophomore year at Penn State. The Soft Parade remains a favorite. It is perfect for long drives, with or without head banging. It will be in the album rotation when I drive to Penn State in mid-November.

The title track began with Jim Morrison announcing in a deep, amplified, and exaggerated voice “when I was back there in seminary school there was a person who put forth the proposition that you can petition the Lord with prayer.” He repeated, “petition the Lord with prayer” twice with sarcasm dripping from each word. And then screamed: “YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD . . . WITH PRAYER.” Then followed a soft beautiful melody that was incongruous with the intro.

Unfortunately, by the time the album was released the drugs had completely addled his brain. He would be dead less than two years later, age 27, most likely from a heroin overdose.

He was wrong.

You can petition the Lord with prayer.

You should petition the Lord with prayer.

You must petition the Lord with prayer.

The first reading and the gospel tell us how to petition the Lord with prayer. There is a one word summary: importune

To importune means: to demand with urgency or persistence; to annoy, to beset with solicitations; to be troublesomely persistent. The entire job description for a two year-old is to importune. And they do it extremely well.

Only the first of the definitions; to demand with urgency and persistence, truly fits prayer. It is impossible to annoy or trouble God with prayer. What some would think is too much is just barely enough. The entire psalter, from Psalm 1 to Psalm 150 is one long, continuous, importuning prayer.

The image in the first reading is fascinating. As long as Moses’ arms were raised in prayer the Israelites were winning the battle. When his hands dropped with fatigue the tide would shift. But Moses had help. Aaron and Hur supported his arms as long as necessary.

So it is for us. We can’t always do it alone in prayer. That is why we are surrounded by a community of believers. That is why we should ask for help with our prayer. That is why we pray for other people. That is why others pray for us. The community of believers is Aaron and Hur supporting our arms when we are too fatigued, too anxiety-ridden, or too overwrought to pray. And we do the same for others when we pray for and with them. The community of believers is first and foremost a community of prayer. Our prayer is important. Our persistence in prayer is crucial to the ongoing salvation of the world. Prayer may be the only thing keeping the world spinning on its axis.

The Gospel is fascinating. The widow was relentless. No matter what the unjust judge did she returned importuning until he gave her a just judgment. The judge’s motivations for giving that judgment were less than honorable. He was motivated not by a thirst for justice but by the fear of being struck. The judge's actions recall T.S. Eliot’s observation,

“The final temptation is the greatest treason,

to do the right thing for the wrong reason.”

God can never be unjust. Jesus asks the rhetorical question: “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?” In the context of this Gospel passage we already know the answer.

The responsorial psalm, Psalm 121, is among the most beautiful and poignant prayers in the entire psalter.

About nineteen years ago Jesuit Father Paul Harmon was addressing thirty Jesuit scholastics, men who were not yet ordained. This psalm was the topic of one of his talks. He suggested that when the psalmist looked up to the mountains he saw that he was surrounded by the fires of sacrifice offered to the Baals, the pagan gods. That compelled him to ask

“Whence shall help come to me?”

The psalmist had been abandoned by his people. They were following not the God of the covenant, the one and only true God. They were following the au courant gods, the gods it was politically correct and socially expedient to worship. Things haven't changed much over the centuries.

And then, from the depths of his despair, the psalmist recalled,

“My help is from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth.”

Father Harmon’s explanation, one I’ve not seen elsewhere and cannot find, put this psalm into a new and deeper context. Rather than a comforting image of looking toward the mountains to see angels, pretty sunsets, and cottony clouds, the psalmist saw the treachery and betrayal of his own people in the flames and smoke coming off the mountains. Upon realizing this abandonment he had to look interiorly, he had to pray, to realize that help came not from the pagan baals. Help came not from power, money, social status, or any of the -isms that are the false gods of today. Help came from the Lord, and only from the Lord, who created both heaven and earth.

"I lift up my eyes toward the mountains;
whence shall help come to me?
My help is from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth."

Stay with that thought for the rest of this day.

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Wandering around the BC campus yesterday (Saturday 19 October) around lunch time. There was a football game at noon. BC defeated NC State. More critically, Penn State defeated Michigan later that night.

Shooting through a window in St. Mary's Hall. Deliberately overexposed in brilliant sunlight, converted to black and white, and then processed a lot. The results suggests the old Brownie Starflash.

The spectrum in the foreground is an example of lens flare due to the harsh sunlight. Generally not considered an asset I rather like the effect.

Leaves in the fountain that sits in front of the Tip O'Neil Library.

Wonder if Greta of the Pigtails would fall into hysterical sobs at this. I'm certain her handlers would be certain of it.

I never noticed this crucifixion over the chapel in St. Mary's Hall before. Part of the reason is that I am rarely in that part of campus. I will return.