18 November 2017
Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
In today’s gospel (Lk 18:1-8), as in many of the gospels that we have heard throughout the past week, Jesus exhorts us to a true and genuine faith in God, especially in those times when it seems that our faith is without response on God’s part. In last Sunday’s gospel (Mt 25:1-13), the Bridegroom is delayed in his return. In Thursday’s gospel (Lk 17:20-25), we hear that the kingdom that the Lord brings is among us, but we do not recognize it, because in this age the Lord is rejected and suffers greatly.
Today, Jesus calls us to hold on to God as insistently as a woman hounding an unjust judge who does not wish to deliver the justice that she seeks. This image can be a bit disconcerting, since God is not an unjust judge but the source and origin of justice itself. However, the image also holds great power, and Jesus would not offer it to us if it were not useful to the life of faith that he offers us. In fact, Jesus wants us to “call out to God night and day,” asking him to “secure the rights of his chosen ones.” To be faithful means to endure in the relationship God offers us, to remain faithful “for better and for worse,” always depending on God’s grace in the messiness of this created world and what we have made of it. So God also endures faithfully in his promises to the fickle, beloved creatures that we are. Likewise, the Son endures abandonment in his passion and descent into hell.
“But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” There may well be people with doctorates in theology and spiritual gurus when the Son of Man comes, but will there be anyone who truly looks to God for the grace which can only come from him? Will there be anyone who endures in faith in the Bridegroom who is delayed, whose justice seems to be just a pipe dream? Do not lose heart! The Son of Man will come in his glory, and he calls us to endure in faith until that day as he has endured out of love for us. When he comes, he hopes to find faith on earth. Let us pray that we do not disappoint him.