Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read Luke 18:1–8

You know when God keeps placing something on your heart, repeatedly, until you can no longer ignore it? That's where I've been lately. And the thing God keeps saying to me is this: persevere in prayer. 

There are situations in my life, in the world around us, that require steadfast, agonizing, unrelenting prayer. 

I know, in my head, that our prayers matter to God. But sometimes, I've been so overwhelmed by the size of some of these mountains that need to be moved that I find myself tempted to stop praying over them entirely. Admitting that feels so vulnerable; it makes my faith seem elementary, or worse, weak. But there is grace in vulnerability. Because I suspect I'm not entirely alone. And, by naming it, I take away some of the enemy's power to lord this weakness over me.

Why do I pull back in prayer? Well, I suppose it can all be boiled down to fear: 

Fear of disappointment.
Fear of how long it might take for God to answer.
Fear that His answer won't look the way I imagined.
Fear that, along the way, suffering will be required. 

All of it points to a fragile and incomplete trust in God's goodness.

Recently, I shared the weariness of my soul with a few of my dear sisters in Christ, women I also have the privilege of working alongside. One of them lovingly pointed something out, "Maybe we feel those things because we still don't know the Father's love."

I recoiled a little when I heard that. A piece of me wanted to become defensive. Shouldn't I know the Father's love by now? Shouldn't I recognize His voice, trust His heart, and believe His truths so deeply that neither the lies of the enemy, nor my own fears, could distort Him?

And yet, as I've sat with her words, I realize she's right. I think the Father wants me to know His love more profoundly and particularly, to meet me in the space between the knowledge I hold in my head of who He is and what I trust in my heart. 

In Sunday's gospel, Jesus encourages us to pray and to put our trust, not in ourselves, but in Him. He uses the parable of the widow and the unjust judge to illustrate this point. Indeed, if even an unjust judge, who feared neither God nor man, was moved to listen to a widow, not out of kindness of heart, but because of her persistent pleading, how much more then will our loving God listen to His children who come to Him with faith and perseverance? Her persistent pleading—our persistent prayer—is a form of worship, showing reverence to our God and demonstrating that even if His will is for our prayer to go unanswered, we still revere Him enough to approach Him for mercy, we revere Him enough to trust that He hears us, we revere Him enough to have faith more in Him than in ourselves.

Faith and prayer are so deeply intertwined. As Saint Augustine writes in his sermon on this parable: "Faith pours out prayer, and the pouring out of prayer obtains the strengthening of faith."[1] Without faith, prayer cannot exist; and yet, by praying, our faith is fortified. Even when our prayers feel small, or we struggle to find the right words, or question the adequacy of our supplications, even when our hearts are weary, our prayers matter. 

For each prayer is an act of trust that God is who He says He is. 

Each one nourishes our faith. Each prayer is powerful, not because we are, but because God is.  

And by turning to God in petition and thanksgiving, the very faith that allows us to pray again is strengthened. 

Food for thought or journaling … 

Where is God calling you to persevere in prayer like the persistent widow?

Find a quiet moment to pray the Litany of Trust composed by Sr. Faustina Maria Pia of the Sisters of Life. 

[1] “Sermon 65 on the New Testament,” New Advent, accessed October 2025, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160365.htm.