"Build a Profound Relationship with God through Prayer": Bishop Paolo Martinelli

Below is the full text of the homily delivered by Bishop Paolo Martinelli, on the XXIX Sunday in Ordinary Time (16 October 2022).

Today we have the joy of gathering together to celebrate the Eucharist. The power of the Holy Spirit gathers us to celebrate Christ's victory over evil and death.

The Word of God today invites us to verify a very important dimension of our life of faith: prayer. We have heard these words from the Gospel: Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. Perhaps these words may seem surprising to us. What can it mean for us who must always pray?

If we think about it, there are things in life that we do every now and then during the day (such as eating, sleeping or working), and others that we do more rarely, such as going on vacation or watching television. No one could invite us, for example, to always eat or always drink without getting tired. We can't even think about always sleeping or always watching television or smartphones. They would be wrong things. Doing so would lead us to feel bad and to get sick.

But if we think about it, there are some activities in our life that we must not interrupt. Two very simple examples: are the breath and the heartbeat. They are two essential activities, and we cannot live without breathing; if our heart stops beating, our life stops.
 

It is no coincidence that the great spiritual tradition has often compared prayer to the breath or the heartbeat precisely to indicate how important it is for the life of the Spirit. If we don't pray, the spiritual life stops.

This reality is presented to us by the reading of the Old Testament when the prayer of Moses appears essential to the people of Israel to fight their enemies: “As long as Moses kept his arms raised, Israel had the advantage; when he let his arms fall, the advantage went to Amalek.”

The Gospel shows us another aspect of prayer. As we know, in fact, there are also many types of prayer: praise, thanksgiving, lamentation, and intercessory prayer, such as the one made by Moses for his people. The parable of Jesus in the Gospel highlights the prayer of question: it is that prayer that starts from a need, from a request, from a deep desire and is addressed to the person who may be able to answer.

The parable of Jesus is truly paradoxical because it offers us the image of a poor widow, who seems alone and helpless, who turns to an evil judge, who has no fear of God and no respect for people. This is an unfair judge. Nobody would expect a positive response from a judge who is not doing his duty. But the extraordinary strength of this widowed woman lies in her insistence, in her repeated demand for justice. The woman's question thus appears capable of obtaining an answer even from an unreliable interlocutor.

From this story, Jesus draws a very important conclusion: ‘You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily.

God answers our questions. God comes to meet our prayers. The Lord never abandons us, even though he sometimes responds in a mysterious way that cannot be understood.

From this parable, we understand that in prayer, we express our every request to God, and in this way, we always remain in a relationship with him. God is our father, and our authentic prayer is suggested by the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of the children of God. Our prayer is, therefore, the prayer of the children.

Finally, Jesus, however, surprises us again because after telling the parable, he poses a great question: But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth? Jesus thinks about his return at the end of time and wonders if he will still find faith.

This question from Jesus makes us think of the profound relationship that exists between prayer and faith. In fact, to pray always, we must trust that the person to whom we turn is capable of responding to our needs. If we trust in God, we ask God. If we have no faith, we will stop praying, stop desiring, remaining closed in on ourselves without hope for the future. We must have solid faith in God. At the same time, we can say that a very important prayer for us is asking the Lord to increase our faith so that we can always live in a profound relationship with him through prayer.

Brothers and sisters, let us continue to pray every day. Let us accept Jesus' invitation to pray without getting tired. I invite you every day to pray as much as possible in the Church and at home, with others, or alone. We can always pray in every circumstance of life, joy, and pain.

Let us now continue the celebration of the Eucharist by professing our faith in God. When Jesus comes, may He finds faith in us. Faith makes us walk every day and sustain us on our journey to the fullness of joy in heaven that no one can ever take away from us.