This week’s readings are all
about persistence when it comes to prayer.
Jesus wants the disciples to pray, persevere, and not grow weary like
Moses did during the battle against Amalek where he held his arms on high so
that Israel would defeat its enemies.
Persistence is the key to prayer as we see in the parable that Jesus
offers of the widow who keeps asking the judge for justice. Our God is a God of justice who will give us
so much more than what the judge gave the widow because we cry out to him and
more importantly because we are his chosen ones.
Today the Church celebrates World
Mission Sunday and we are called to be persistent in our prayers for all missionaries
throughout the world. Here we turn to
the co-patroness of the missions who despite her young age, despite never leaving
the convent, and despite ailments that afflicted her until her untimely death
at 24, always prayed unceasingly and offered up her suffering for the missions
and for the spread of the gospel. Of course,
I am talking about St. Therese of Lisieux who longed to be a missionary. We look to her as a model of how fervent our
prayers should be for all those brothers and sisters throughout the world who
sacrifice so much to bring the message of Jesus Christ and the compassion and
work of his Church to people that desperately need it.
Today we pray for the Salesian
Sisters in Chennai, India who dedicate their lives to rescuing girls from child
trafficking and modern day slavery (yes it still very much exists in the 21st
century, sadly). There in Chennai little
girls are sold off and have to work in households from 5:00am to Midnight every
day cooking, cleaning, and looking after babies despite being only 9 or 10
years old. The Sisters rescue these girls
and give them a loving home where they give them an education and restore their
dignity. (You can see more about the
good work of these Sisters and the plight of these girls by watching this short
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jk5GGHdoS3w) There is so much good that the Church does
throughout the world that we don’t even know about it. It’s not as simple as feeding the hungry, clothing
the naked, and caring for the sick anymore.
Missionaries around the world risk their lives every single day to do
the work of Christ and proclaim his glorious Name even in countries where it is
illegal to do so just so that their brothers and sisters could have a better
life. That is what the Salesian Sisters
do in Chennai, India, and that is why all these missionaries need our constant
prayers. A missionary has to be as
persistent as the widow in the gospel and as bold as St. Paul tells Timothy to
be in the second reading.
I’ll end with this story about
our dear Bishop Román who spent years and years going out to visit the Miccosukee
Indians to celebrate Mass for them even though no one there was Catholic. Yet, he persisted. He would go again and again without a hint of
discouragement, and many years into his ministry there, he finally got one person
who embraced the Catholic faith. Bishop
Román would tell this story with so much joy.
So many would have given up after a year or two and so many would have
thought one conversion over so many years a failure, but the good bishop kept pressing
on and he rejoiced when all that hard work paid off because one heart now belonged
to Jesus Christ. This holy man reminds
us that we too are all called to be missionaries by virtue of our baptism, and
that we are called to invite others to share in the joy that we experience
every Sunday here at the Eucharistic feast.
There are so many people out there that need to experience the love,
mercy, and peace of Jesus Christ. Today,
I’m not asking you to go off to India to help the Salesian sisters. I’m not asking you to go off to any distant
lands. Today, I just have one simple missionary
request: invite someone to Mass who doesn’t usually go. They may and probably will say no at first,
but keep at it. Maybe your persistence
will cause them to finally give in to your request like the judge in the gospel. And when they do come to Mass and open
themselves to the outpouring of grace that takes place here at this altar, the
sky’s the limit to what God has in store for them. May we always be persistent in our prayers
for missionaries around the world, and may we embrace our baptismal call to be
missionaries on this World Mission Sunday and every Sunday by inviting one,
just one, person to come to Mass with you next week. St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.
