Homily for October 20, 2013 -- 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

We Need God!!!!!!

We need to be in communication with Him at all times. It can be called prayer, it can be called seeking Him in scripture, it can be called serving Him by serving the needy around us.

The first reading in Exodus is clear example of our need for God. The Amaleks would have annihilated the Israelites without the Lord’s intervention. As long as Moses kept his hands raised in prayer, the battle went well for them. When he tired and dropped his hands the battle turned in favor of the enemy. So Moses turned to the help of his friends, Aaron and Hur to hold his hand up for him.

This should also be a lesson for us to have prayer partners that will be there to remind us and pray with us when the going gets rough.

In our second reading Paul reminds Timothy to stay firm in the faith by staying faithful to what he has learned in the scriptures. This became very clear to me after I made my very first CRHP weekend. I was 30 years old and attended Catholic school for 12 years and never picked up the Bible to read. We decided on that weekend to read the book of Romans. When I started to read Romans that Monday morning I could not put the book down. I was reading my life story and learned to get inspiration and guidance from turning to it every day. It is very reassuring to know that God is there to teach and guide me through good times and bad.

All of these forms of communication must be learned. Just as God’s ways must be learned, we must persevere to understand God. Now the judge in the parable did not care and therefore held back on his judgment. Jesus is comparing him to the Father in heaven who cares deeply for us. If we see God as an uncaring God we will give up on seeking him and miss out on the blessings that He wants us to have.

He has a reason for not answering prayers when it helps us to form our faith.

We have human weaknesses. / We are attracted to worldly things.

We find humility and obedience difficult / We find dryness in our prayer life

Sometimes we can be scrupulous and not enjoy God’s forgiveness.

We do not see the needy around us: our spouses, our children, our parents, our siblings.

God is not finished with us yet so we must not give up on our ability to reach Him.

When we know His forgiveness we will know perfect peace in all circumstances.