God Is Good!

Saturday, November 16, 2024

3 Jn 5-8; Lk 18:1-8

Today’s Gospel invites us to have faith in the goodness of God. 

In the parable of the Persistent Widow, the text repeats twice that the dishonest judge does not fear God nor respect any human being. 

The fact about the judge is repeated twice to demonstrate his dishonesty, which is at its lowest level possible. 

In a different sense, the dishonest judge is so dishonest that he disregards the teachings of the Decalogue, whose two-fold central concerns are love of God and love of neighbor. 

However, Jesus shows that even such a dishonest judge comes forward to help the widow with a just decision, though he is forced to do so thanks to the importunate widow. 

In fact, Jesus makes use of the dishonest judge to contrast God’s goodness that is ever willing to bless us.

Through his parable, Jesus implies that if the dishonest judge himself was still capable of delivering justice to God’s anavim (the poor, widow, and destitute), how much more would the good God be considerate towards our prayers?

When Jesus invites us to be persistent in prayer, he wants us to consider something.

We pray not because we are good, but because God is good. 

In other words, the merits of our prayer depend on God the giver and not on our worth or goodness as receivers. 

Let us pray that we may be encouraged by the fact that ‘God is good – All the time’ to be ceaseless in our prayers. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar