29 C 19 October 2025 Persistent Prayer
In an age which looks for practical solutions and is impatient with prayer, the word of God reminds us that prayer is the beginning and end of all human activity.
Moses’ prayer has a direct, visible effect on the course of the battle. It is not always so obvious when we pray, but the same principle is always at work.
When we pray we are bringing the power and the love of God into action at the scene of our prayer.
And, yes, there is still a battle going one. The battle is at the spiritual level, between good and evil. God and Satan are fighting over which one will possess us for all eternity.
It is a furious battle and one which is mostly invisible, but no less real for that.
And being an invisible battle, it is easy for us to be distracted from attention to it.
Moses could see what happened when he prayed, and when he stopped praying. We are not so fortunate to see the results so clearly.
But we need to understand that while our arms are lifted up in prayer the forces of good are making progress, and if we relax our efforts and become complacent, the forces of evil make progress.
The prayer has to be continuous, and persistent. Like the widow in the Gospel (Lk 18,1-8), we keep knocking on the door of heaven. Lord help us, save us.
Even when there is nothing in particular going wrong, that we can see, we keep praying because the battle is still raging.
We might think of our prayer as an individual matter. I have said my prayers for today.
But think of a soldier going into battle. He does not say: I’ve fired my bullets for today, so now I can relax. He knows that while he is out there on the battlefield he is involved and committed, and must keep shooting.
This is our position. It is not bullets we fire, but prayer, while keeping a constant state of alertness. It is hard to keep up this attitude, but the Church itself helps us.
Just as Aaron and Hur help up Moses’ arms, so the whole Church holds us up when we grow tired.
Of course, we must sleep and rest, and must attend to other things. But somewhere in the world, someone is praying while we rest. The Church is always at prayer. There is always a Mass going on somewhere, always a rosary being said.
This is comforting, but we always need more prayer and more intensity.
Given some of the issues we face in our time, we cannot just rest with a few short prayers before we go to bed. We have some major problems on our hand and need to bring them to some serious prayer.
What about the young people? What about all the lapsed Catholics? The abortions? The divorces, the suicides, the drugs, the disasters, the terrorism.... and on and on.
There are more things to pray about than we have minutes in the day. No one person can address them all, but the more time and energy we do put into our prayer the better things will get.
We support each other here in this church, in this parish. It is easy to be discouraged, to give up, to feel alone. But see the tide of battle turning and realize that you could be part of that, as courage and energy return.
May the Lord sustain us in our prayer, as we call upon Him.
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