Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Scripture Readings
First Exodus 17:8-13
Second 2 Tim 3:14-4:2
Gospel Luke 18: 1-8
1. Subject Matter
• The Israelites’ military victory depended largely on the intercessory prayer power of Moses.
• Prayer is relationship with God. The way one prays, reveals that relationship.
• If the disciples do not “cry out day and night” to the Lord, then they do not have faith, for that
is what faith does.
• “Be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient.”
2. Exegetical Notes
• This parable on prayer and the one that follows (Lk 9-14) are found only in Luke. Throughout
Luke-Acts, there is an emphasis on the prayer of Jesus and the disciples. See Lk 6:28; 11:1-
2; 22:40, 46; and Acts: 1:14; 2:42; 3:1; 6:4, 6; 10:4, 9, 30-31; 12:5, 12; 16:13, 16, 25; 20:36;
21:5; 22:17; 28:8.
• Lk 18:1: The continuous sense of the present tense of the verb to pray is used here - with a
meaning of consistency and perseverance, not perpetual. Here, Luke highlights the notion
that one should not ‘give up’ praying because of discouragement.
• Luke echoes typical Pauline themes: “pray always” (1 Thes 5:17; 2 The 1:11; Rom 1:10;
12:12; Eph 6:18) and “do not lose heart” (2 Thes 3:13; 2 Cor 4:1, 16; Gal 6:9; Eph 3:13)
• Lk 18:2: The judge is a stock character, with no regard for God, no scruples, and incapable
of shame. Any God-fearing jurist would feel obligated by Torah to take special care of the
widow. (See Deut 10:18; 14:29; 16:11, 14; 24:19-21; 26:12-13)
• Lk 18:5 can be translated as “Otherwise she will keep coming and end up giving me a black
eye.” The sense is that the widow keeps “giving me such a beating.” There is ambiguity in
the phrase such that it could mean that the widow literally socked the judge, or else she is
damaging his reputation. Thus, although he has no regard for humans, he may depend on
his reputation to continue being a judge.
• Lk 18:7 – crying out to him day and night: This verb is often used for appealing to God for
help (see Exod 8:12; 15:25; Num 12:13). Deut 15:9 reports the threat that the poor man who
is given nothing, “and he will cry out to the Lord against you and it will be sin in you.”
• Lk 18:8 – do justice for them quickly: can mean ‘accomplish their vindication.’ “It is
possible…for God to wait for what seems like a long time – as did the judge – and then
decide ‘quickly’ to act – as did the judge.” (Johnson)
• Lk 18:8 The reference to the Son of Man’s coming echoes Lk 17:22, 24, 26, and 30. The
underlying question is whether the parousia will ever take place and the behavior such doubt
induces (Lk 12:45-46; 2 Pet 3:4-10). The parable is meant to encourage the disciples to
continue praying “thy kingdom come” since God is faithful and will vindicate his people.
• “Since the center of the person of Jesus is prayer, it is essential to participate in his prayer if
we are to know and understand him…Prayer is the act of self-surrender by which we enter
the Body of Christ. Thus it is an act of love. As love, in and with the Body of Christ, it is
always both love of God and love of neighbor, knowing and fulfilling itself as love for the
members of this Body.”
• “The person of Jesus is constituted by the act of prayer, of unbroken communication with the
one he calls ‘Father.’ If this is the case, it is only possible really to understand this person by
entering into this act of prayer, by participating in it. This is suggested by Jesus’ saying that
no one can come to him unless the Father draws him (Jn 6:44). Where there is no Father,
there is no Son. Where there is no relationship with God, there can be no understanding of
him who, in his innermost self, is nothing but relationship with God, the Father…therefore a
participation in the mind of Jesus, i.e., in his prayer,…is the basic precondition if real
understanding, in the sense of modern hermeneutics – i.e., the entering-in to the same time
and the same meaning – is to take place.”
• “The basic reason why man can speak with God arises from the fact that God himself is
speech, Word. His nature is to speak, to hear, to reply…Only because there is already
speech, ‘Logos,’ in God can there be speech, ‘Logos,’ to God. Philosophically we could put it
like this: the Logos in God is the ontological foundation for prayer.”
• “The Incarnation of the Logos brings eternity into time and time into eternity. As a result of
the Incarnation, human speech has become a component in divine speech; it has been taken
up, unconfusedly and inseparably, into that speech which is God’s inner nature. Through the
Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of God, we can share in the human nature of Jesus Christ;
and in sharing in his dialogue with God, we can share in the dialogue which God is. This is
prayer, which becomes a real exchange between God and man.”
• “Prayer is an act of being; it is affirmation, albeit not affirmation of myself as I am and of the
world as it is, but affirmation of the ground of being and hence a purifying of myself and of the
world from this ground upward…In the purification which issues from the fundamental Yes
we discover the active power of prayer, which (a) yields a deep security in the affirmation of
being, as a foil to the hectic world of self-made man, yet which (b) is by no means a flight
from the world but rather entrusts people with the task of purifying the world and empowers
them to carry it out…It is the Son who guides us along the path of purification which leads to
the door of the Yes.”
• “Why is God silent? Why does he withdraw? Why is it that just the opposite of what I wanted
is happening? This distance between what Jesus promised and what we experience in our
own lives makes you think, every time – it has that effect in each generation, for each single
person, and even for me. Each one of us has to struggle to work out an answer for himself,
so that in the end he comes to understand why God has spoken to him precisely like that.
Augustine and other great Christians say that God gives us what is best for us – even when
we do not recognize this at first. Often, we think that exactly the opposite of what he does
would really be best for us. We have to learn to accept this path, which, on the basis of our
experience and our suffering, is difficult for us, and to see it as the way in which God is
guiding us.”
• “God’s way is often a path that enormously reshapes and remolds our life, a path in which we
are truly changed and straightened out. To that extent, we have to say that this ‘Ask, and
you will receive’ certainly cannot mean that I can call God in as a handyman who will make
my life easy every time I want something. Or who will take away suffering and questioning.
On the contrary, it means that God definitely hears me and what he grants is, in the way
known only to him, what is right for me.”
7. Other Considerations
• “The parable of the widow and the unjust judge is brilliantly placed immediately after the
discourse in which Jesus makes clear that the kingdom he proclaims is not yet the end-time,
that there must be a period in which the disciples will ‘long to see one of the days of the Son
of Man and will not see it” (17:22)…The readers can all too easily see themselves as the
widow, subject to oppression and delayed retribution, and by losing hope and courage
become those who ‘ have faith for a time but in season of testing fall away’ (8:13).”
(Johnson).
• The question of God’s delay – is it out of merciful patience, to give the wicked time to convert
(2 Pet 3:9) and provide the disciples with time to complete their renunciation and dedication
to God? (JBC)
• Jesus’ teaching about perseverance in prayer is combined with a warning about remaining
steadfast in faith – the two go hand in hand. While the Lord promised that His Church will
remain true to its mission (Mt 28:20), not everyone will remain faithful. St. Paul speaks of the
“rebellion” of those who mysteriously turn their backs on the true faith in 2 Thes 2:3, and
Jesus himself announces this in Mt 24:12-13. Thus, Jesus warns us to remain watchful and
firm in the faith, even when others fall away.
Recommended Resources
Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI ed. Peter John Cameron, Ignatius Press, 2006.
Christ Our Light: Readings on Gospel Themes II, Ordinary Time, trans. And ed. By Friends of
Henry Ashworth, Exordium Books, 1985.
Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, and Roland Murphy,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968.
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 3, ed. By Daniel J
Harrington, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991.
The Navarre Bible: St. Luke, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.
United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, Washington, DC: United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops, 2006.