Exodus 17: 8-13
2 Tim 3:14 - 4:2
Luke 18:1-8

Bishop Untener's Homily

This Gospel is about prayer. It can be helpful to realize that we don't pray to flatter God, or try to talk God into something, or because God needs to have people praising him. We pray because it affects us. It sets us in the right direction - toward God. Praying helps us realize that there is a God, that God loves us, that we need God, and that the gifts God gives us are far, far beyond us. Existence, life, eternal life, the forgiveness of sin - these are not things we can do for ourselves. They're beyond us, and they're gifts from God, and when we pray, we realize that. It points us in the right direction.

We teach a little child to say thank-you to his mother, and on Mother's Day to take crayons and make a card for her. The mother doesn't need that, but the child does. The child realizes how much his mother does for him, how much his mother loves him. It sets the child in the right direction.

A month or so ago I played golf with a fellow who last year was honored as the best golfer in Michigan for the past decade. He shot four under par. (Don't ask what I shot.) He was a fine person and we simply enjoyed the round of golf. He didn't try to correct my swing or anything like that.

But afterward, as we were having a sandwich I said to him: "I noticed that as you stood over the ball ready to make your swing, you would always look down the fairway for 4 or 5 seconds. You'd stare at something out there, then you'd look down at the ball and start your swing. What is it you were doing?"

He said, "What I do is look at exactly where I want the ball to go. You see, your body is something like a computer. You decide where you want the ball to go and then your body makes it go there." I told him, "You've got a different kind of body than I've got."

He said, "No. You have to work on your golf swing on the driving range - learn how to make the ball fade or draw, and develop a good swing. But when you're out on the golf course playing, you can't think of all those mechanics. I try not to think of anything except where I want the ball to go, and then let my body do it. This doesn't mean that it will happen every time . . . but if you concentrate on where you want the ball to go, it sets everything in the right direction and a lot of good things happen."

It struck me much later that this is why we pray. We turn ourselves towards God, and when we do that, it sets everything in the right direction and a lot of good things happen.

It's not hard to pray. It's very simple. And actually we like to pray. That's not the problem.

The problem is trying to do it from time to time when we're in the middle of our day. We forget to turn toward God. As a matter of fact, it doesn't seem that God "belongs" in the regular stuff of our day. God doesn't "fit" there - when we're caught in traffic, or in a meeting, or doing the things we do all day. That's what's hard about prayer. That's what Jesus was talking about in today's Gospel - being persistent in our prayer, sustaining our prayer. When we manage to do that it sets us in the right direction, and a lot of good things happen.

Over the course of time, Christians have developed customs and traditions that try to help us do that, and we ought to take a good look at them. I've thought about these and I've asked a few people to brainstorm with me what some of those customs are. Here are some that I've come up with and I'll bet you've heard of and done most of them at one time or another.

• When you hear a siren, you say a prayer. It might be a fire engine or an ambulance or a police car, and you say a prayer for the people who are in some kind of trouble.
• We pray before a meal. We all know that one. It's one of the easiest prayers to say... and it's one of the easiest prayers to skip.
• When you pass a church you make the sign of the cross. Men used to tip their hats.
• If there is a bad storm, you light a candle at home and say a prayer.
• When you see a funeral procession or pass a cemetery, you say a prayer.
• When you hear a church bell, you say a prayer. That's why the church developed the custom of the Angelus - to remind us to pray in the morning, at noon, and in the evening... to pray in the middle of whatever we're doing.
• When you lose something you pray to St. Anthony.
• In school many of us learned to put "JMJ" at the top of our paper, or AMDG. This was a way of bringing God into our schoolwork.
• When you pass a hospital you say a prayer.

These are fine customs and we ought not to lose them. And we can make up some of our own to help point us in the right direction during the day. Just as Moses needed help to hold his arms up in prayer, we need the help of customs like these to pray during the day.

I close by reminding myself and you that we turn toward God, set ourselves in the right direction most of all during the Mass. When the bread and wine and money are brought forward to the altar, they represent us - food and drink and our living. We place them on the altar which represents Christ, and together with Christ in the Eucharistic prayer, we give it all to God. Jesus did that on the cross and this is made present to us so that we can enter into it with him. We give today, tomorrow, our whole life to God and commit ourselves to do what God wants us to do in our life. It is our greatest act of prayer.

I invite you to be more conscious of that as we continue to celebrate the Eucharist today. And I invite all of us to develop customs in our lives that help us turn toward God during the day. When we turn toward God, then we're on the right track. We're pointed in the right direction, and a lot of good things happen.

Originally given on October 21, 2001