Faith.Friendship (2015-10-19, 29th Sunday)

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29^th Sunday, 2025-October-19   ●● Exodus 17:8-13 ●● Psalm 121 ●● 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2  ●● Luke 18:1-8 

 Persevering Friendship — Love That Never Gives Up

1. The Widow Who Would Not Give Up

In today’s Gospel (Luke 18:1-8), Jesus tells us about a widow who refuses to give up.
Again and again she stands before an unjust judge — a man who “neither feared God nor respected any human being.” Yet her persistence wears him down, and finally he grants her justice.

Why does Jesus tell this parable? “That we ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1).
This is more than a story about persistence — it is a lesson about friendship with God and about the courage to keep believing in goodness when the world grows tired of waiting.

The Catechism reminds us of “the need for prayer that never ceases and for patient faith in God’s mercy” (CCC 2613). Faith is not proven by how quickly prayers are answered, but by how faithfully we continue to ask.

2. The Friend at Midnight

Jesus tells another story (Luke 11:5-8). A man knocks at his friend’s house at midnight, asking for bread to feed a traveler. At first the friend says, “Don’t bother me; the door is locked.” But because of his persistence — his shameless insistence — the friend gets up and gives him what he needs.

Both parables show the same truth: true friendship and true faith persevere.
They don’t stop loving when love becomes inconvenient. They don’t stop knocking when heaven seems silent. Pope Francis calls patience and perseverance “the virtues of the valiant.” They are the quiet strength of those who keep knocking at the door of God’s heart.

3. Persevering Love in Family Life

Recently, my parents celebrated 60 years of marriage. That’s perseverance. But whether it’s six months or sixty years, it takes courage to stay faithful, to keep forgiving, to keep listening, to keep loving.

Persevering love doesn’t mean we never struggle; it means we keep showing up. That’s true of every lasting friendship and every disciple of Jesus.

4. Friendship in Action — The Officer and the Air Jordans

A friend once told me about his father, George, a police officer in West Orange. One day in the 1980s, George was called to a shop-lifting incident: a teenager had tried to steal a pair of Air Jordan sneakers.

What did the officer do? He went home, opened his own son’s closet, took out a pair of Air Jordans, and brought them to the boy — not as a reward, but as a gesture of mercy. He reconciled with him, teaching the boy a lesson about dignity, forgiveness, and hope.

That act of compassion has stayed with me. It mirrors today’s Gospel: the widow who keeps pleading, the friend who keeps knocking until mercy opens the door. It shows what persevering friendship looks like — love that intercedes, love that refuses to walk away.

Pope Francis reminds us that forgiveness must go hand-in-hand with the defense of human dignity (Fratelli Tutti §241). Mercy and justice are not opposites; they meet in love.

5. Christ, the Faithful Friend

That’s what Jesus does for us. He is the Friend who stands before the Father on our behalf.
As Saint Paul writes, “Christ Jesus… intercedes for us at the right hand of God” (Romans 8:34).

In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we meet that Friend again — the One we have wounded, yet who welcomes us home. As the Psalmist prays:

“A humble, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn” (Psalm 51:17).

There, Jesus reshapes the heart. In the Eucharist, He sends us forth to live what we have received — to forgive, to reconcile, to build peace. Persevering friendship with God must become persevering friendship with others.

 

6. The Saints: Friends at Midnight

Two saints who remind us of this persevering friendship are Saint Carlo Acutis and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Both died young — at 15 and 24 — but their short lives burned brightly with prayer and love.

Thérèse’s confidence in God’s mercy shows that even in weakness, His arms are always open. Carlo’s devotion to the Eucharist teaches us that friendship with Jesus transforms ordinary life.

A saint “is the friend at midnight” who intercedes for us says the Catechism. (CCC 956). The saints “share in the living tradition of prayer and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth” (CCC 2683). They invite us to do the same — to pray not only for those who love us, but also for those who misunderstand or even reject us.

Jesus commands: “Pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). This is the friendship of the Gospel.

7. Perseverance for the Sake of Peace

Our world needs that kind of friendship. Pope Francis teaches that “patience and dialogue are the virtues of the valiant.”
Saint John Paul II added that “there can be no true peace without justice, and no justice without forgiveness.”

The widow’s relentless plea for justice mirrors the Church’s own prayer before the world — pleading for mercy, dignity, and peace even when those in power refuse to listen. Peace is not automatic, but it is possible — a grace entrusted to those who persevere in prayer, compassion, and hope.

8. Prayer, Fasting, and Acts of Mercy

How do we live this perseverance?
By giving our faith a body — through prayer, fasting, and works of mercy.
Every Rosary prayed for peace, every fast from comfort or indifference, every act of forgiveness is a midnight knock on the world’s door saying:

“Lord, give us the bread of peace, the bread of justice, the bread of mercy.”

When we fast and pray, we join the cry of the hungry, the broken, and the forgotten. This is the rhythm of persevering friendship: love that never stops interceding, never stops knocking, never stops believing.

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9. Love Never Fails

Saint Paul says it best:

“Love is patient, love is kind… It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

The key to perseverance is not stubbornness, but love. Saint Augustine wrote, “All prayer is an exercise of desire — and what we desire most is love, because love never fails.”

The widow’s persistence, the friend’s midnight knock, and Christ’s intercession all reveal the same truth: persevering friendship is love that endures the silence until love itself becomes the answer.

10. Conclusion — Keep Knocking

The widow never gave up.
The neighbor never stopped knocking.
Neither can we.

Their stories invite us to pray always and not lose heart, to believe that God’s friendship is stronger than human indifference, and to trust that His mercy is greater than any of our sins.

Where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found.

11. Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, faithful Friend,
teach us to keep knocking at Your door.
When the night is long and hope grows dim, strengthen our hearts to pray and to love.
Turn fear into courage, comfort into compassion, and strangers into neighbors.
Grant us love that never fails,
so that Your peace may dwell among us —
for where two or three gather in Your name, there You are in our midst. Amen.