Word of the Week
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Unceasing: Adialeiptos (Gk.): meaning, “without intermission, incessantly, without ceasing.”
The Catechism, while highlighting Paul’s verses on the call to pray constantly (cf. below), states that if we are to persevere in love, we must see the importance of prayer to battle “against our dullness and laziness” (CCC, 2742). The CCC states:“The battle of prayer is that of humble, trusting, and loving prayer, which opens our hearts to three enlightening and life-giving facts about prayer” (2742). These three gifts include:
1-“It is always possible to pray…All time should be in the hand of God” (2743).
2-“Prayer is a vital necessity…without prayer we would fall back into sin” (2744).
3-“Prayer and the Christian Life are inseparable, for they concern the same love and the same renunciation, proceeding from love; the same conformity with the Father’s plan of love; the same transforming union in the Holy Spirit who conforms us more and more to Jesus Christ…who commands us to love one another” (2745). For this reason, our faith ought to permeate every corner of our life.
The Greek term Adialeitpos can be found four times in the New Testament. Collectively, this term is tied to an exhortation that encourages Christians to be unceasing in their prayer and thanksgiving to God (cf. Rom.1:9, 1 Thes.1:3, 2:13, 5:17). This call to be in an around-the-clock conversation with God emerges as a real theme to Paul’s call to Christian discipleship. In his letter to Rome, he draws out the mark of the true Christian as one who is “constantly in prayer” (Rom.12:12). In his letter to Ephesus, the call to “pray at all times in the Spirit” (Eph.6:18) is central to putting on God’s armor. Essentially, Paul wants us to see that a new life in Christ is one rooted in constant prayer, that everything we do, “in word or deed, be done in the name of Jesus Christ” (Col.3:17).
That being said, this Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time has us reflecting into the meaning of persistent prayer with the Parable of the Widow and the Unrighteous Judge (cf. Lk.18:1-9). At the heart of this parable is a widow who is tireless in her requests of God, an appeal that ultimately has God “vindicate her requests speedily” (cf. Lk.18:8). In other words, we pray--God acts!
This bedrock truth of our Christian faith to pray ‘without intermission’, has me thinking about my days in High School as a basketball player. As many of us know, every basketball game of regulation has a halftime intermission (and for that matter most sports). While this certainly was a break from the fast paced game of running up and down a court, it was by no means a break from the game itself. In fact, halftime was very important to the outcome of the game. It was the time in which you would make the necessary adjustments to be a better team. In effect, intermission never means a time where you stop playing the game, but a time to pause to better play the game better. Prayer as ‘without intermission’ is no different. There is never a time where you stop praying as much there are times where you pause to pray formally to better understand how to pray informally. For this reason, we pray ‘without intermission’, glorifying God in all that we do. Amen!
“He ‘prays without ceasing’ who unites prayer to works and good works to prayer. Only in this way can we consider as realizable the principle of praying without ceasing.”
--Origen
Primary Texts Consulted
• Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
Primary Texts Consulted
• Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
• Hahn, Scott and Minch, Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, RSV, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010.
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