Posted on November 10, 2022 View all Gospel Reflection
The powerless widow doesn’t have a chance against this powerful judge.
Likewise, in our First Reading, the inadequacy of Moses: to keep his hands aloft; and the widow: Power in Seeming Weakness.
These readings are meant to be interpreted theologically.
Feel like a poor widow? The word for “widow” in Hebrew literally means “one who is silent”: to have nothing, vulnerable, no voice. However, when one resists injustice, faces it, names it, and denounces it until justice is achieved, then one is acting as God does.
The parable teaches us to persist in pouring out your needs to God. You take on his heart and his perspective.
That’s the mysterious reward of intercession. It goes beyond getting the answer you expect from your prayers. God secures your “rights” to his wisdom, his peace, his love, and his character (Luke 18:7). You develop an ever-deepening relationship with the One who gives all good gifts.
[source: Reverend Maurice J. Nutt, C.Ss.R., D.Min.].
In contrast, when we quit praying, we cut ourselves off from the power of God, and then our cynicism becomes self-fulfilling. Jesus says that there is a necessity for us to pray always without becoming weary.
2). As for the judge–
E.g., A scholar named Ford said if he were the judge’s therapist, he would resist the temptation to be disgusted or withdraw and would instead try to become curious and hypothesize that the judge “who neither feared God nor respected any human being” once felt as this widow does: angry, baffled, and rejected. To put it differently, the judge may, as an adult, just be mimicking the behavior of those upon whom he once depended. Just as he was earlier controlled by others and then put down for resisting that control, he now dominates this woman and blames her for his resulting distress.
The judge does have problems. It is explicitly stated that the judge neither feared God nor respected any human being, and yet the Old Testament is clear that the fear of God is a necessary prerequisite for administering justice, since God is the judge of all the earth (Prov. 17:15; 24:23-25; Psa. 94:2; 7:8; 89:19).
3. As for the enemy–
In our First Reading, Amalek attacked first. Typically, this shows us that sin takes the offensive in the life of a Christian in order to cause us to regress.
Amalek has chiefly a symbolic function, standing for any person, group or nation who by attacking Israel resists the divine will.
Two passages stress the gratuitous nature of the Amalekite assault: in Ex. 17 they come and fight without any provocation, probably before the Israelites have a chance to assuage their thirst, and in Deut. 25 they snipe, in cowardly fashion, at fatigued stragglers among the Israelites.
Amalek likes smiting the enfeebled when you are faint and felt tired.
The Lord will wage war on Amalek from generation to generation (Ex. 17:16). That is part of the terms of the spiritual life in this world for the baptized.
Prayer is the secret of keeping faith. “I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
I like the story of the old country bumpkin,
Who explained how we have to choose Jesus to his family,
“God votes for you, the devil votes against you, and wherever you cast your vote, you’re elected 2-1!
A delay in his coming does not nullify the certainty.
The faith mentioned here naturally means that faith which sustain by perseverance in prayer.
