In today’s Gospel, Jesus stresses the importance of perseverance in prayer. Does this mean we should spend more time at formal prayer? No! A mother doing housework can practice perseverance at prayer more effectively than a priest who willfully encourages distractions while reading his breviary in chapel.
A normal person cannot be thinking about God all of the time. But doing one’s daily tasks can direct his attention to God, who has given him the vocation he has. Developing the habit of saying short prayers – aspirations, they’re called – can remind one that God is ever present with him in whatever he does. That mother doing housework may think for a fleeting moment of her husband and children while she’s busy at work. That’s what perseverance in prayer is all about.
But would it not be better to get to a chapel to recite long prayers?
Christ is truly in the Blessed Sacrament in a special way. Visits should be encouraged. But, as long as we are not in serious sin, he is with us. Ever since our baptism we are temples – chapels of the Holy Spirit. Perseverance in prayer means acknowledging that fact.
The first reading tells us that ever since the beginning of the Church, Christians responded to the need of one another. Today is the feast of St. Josephat, who died a martyr attempting to unite an Orthodox church with Rome.
Resolve: Reflecting how singularly I have been blessed, I shall say special prayers, in union with those of the Blessed Virgin, this Saturday, for my Orthodox brothers and sisters, particularly those suffering today in Ukraine and Russia, and ask God for better perseverance in prayer for myself.