Question

Father Angelo,

My name is Angelo and I’m writing to ask the following question.

The parable of the importunate neighbor, read quickly and without interpretation, makes it seem as though God, when He doesn’t give motivated by love, gives because He’s annoyed by our insistence.

Now, thinking this through, it’s obvious that the idea that God doesn’t give motivated by love, but because He has limited patience is impossible.

Therefore, I think that what Christ wants to teach us with this parable is to not fixate one specific request, but to pray always without getting tired.

In order to better explain what I believe, I’ll give you a small example: when a child asks something of his father, the father doesn’t give in if the child is asking for something bad, or he wouldn’t be a good father and, if the child is asking for something good, it is not his insistence which grants him what he asks, because if what he’s asking for is good he would have obtained it nonetheless.

Furthermore, teaching insistence leads the person who asks to obsession, to believing God doesn’t love you, that you can obtain anything, even bad things, that He doesn’t listen to you, that He wants to be begged. What kind of love wants to be begged? One who loves gives of himself.

Therefore, the message that we often hear in the Church is that we obtain things by bothering God.

Don’t you think this is wrong? Don’t you think that asking once and living serenely is sufficient? And, most of all, that insistence shouldn’t refer to a specific thing, but to praying always?

I’ll be waiting for your answer.

Thank you.

Priest’s answer

Dearest,

  1. If the message that we spread with the parable of the inopportune widow is that by bothering God we obtain what we want it is obviously incorrect.
    When we ask for something that is bad for us, however much we beg, we cannot obtain it.
  2. However, you move an objection on the necessity of insisting.
    That is, if God is love “What kind of love wants to be begged? One who loves gives of himself.”
  3. What you say is true: What kind of love wants to be begged? One who loves you gives of himself. This reminds us that God doesn’t need to be begged. He’s always open to giving. Rather, He is Gift.
    He’s always giving in the same way the sun gives without ceasing his light and his warmth. 
  4. But the purpose of prayer is not to let God know our needs.
    Jesus said: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Mt 6:7-8).
    However, He didn’t ask to only ask once, but to pray without becoming weary (Lk 18:1).
    “The purpose of prayer in fact is not to inform God” (St. Augustine, De gratia N. Testam., 29)” but to “build us (Ib.).
    In other words, the purpose is to make us fit to receive the gifts that God has wanted to give us for all eternity.
    It’s what it expressed in the liturgy with the invocation “ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Cristi” (so that we become deserving of Christ’s promises).
  5. The purpose of unceasing prayer isn’t then to bother God, but to ask ourselves what do we need to change in our life to receive the gifts that God has planned to give us for our sanctification.
    If these gifts are slow to come that means that we need to change a lot.
    Or that they aren’t conducive to our sanctification.
    Or that God wants to give them in the right moment.
    In fact, “The eyes of the Lord are directed toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry” (Psalm 34:16).
    And: Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: “Here I am!” (Is 58:9).
    We will find Him ready to give us everything and immediately if we remove “the yoke from among you, the accusing finger, and malicious speech” (Ib.), meaning everything that is contrary to charity, if we are ready to ask on behalf of others as well and especially for our enemies everything that we ask God.
  6. Therefore, if we ask for things that are harmful for our salvation we will never get them, no matter how unceasing our prayer may be.
    If, on the other hand, we ask for things that aren’t necessary, but at the same time aren’t contrary to our eternal salvation, we can be granted or not granted what we ask with the same mercy, because the doctor knows better than the patient what is good for him, as Saint Augustine observes.
    It is for this reason – says Saint Thomas – that Saint Paul’s prayer wasn’t fulfilled when he asked to be freed from the call of the flesh, because it wasn’t suitable (cfr. Summa theologiae, II-II, 83, 15, ad 2).
  7. As you can tell, asking in general or asking once isn’t sufficient.
    Just like a field isn’t made ready for sowing with just one action, but with a series of actions like plowing, fertilizing, sowing, waiting for the autumn and spring rain, the sun, weeding… in the same way we need many and repeated acts in order to make us fit to receive what the Lord has disposed to give us for our sanctification.

I thank you for your question, I recommend you to the Lord and bless you.

Father Angelo

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