When you hear that the purpose of Jesus telling the parable about the widow and the judge was “to pray always without becoming weary,” you might think he’s talking about praying all the time.

When Jesus comes again, will he find faith on earth? That is a haunting question. Where would any of us go to seek faith—that is, to seek the people who put their trust radically in God’s promises? Would we go to houses of prayer and worship? Would we go to monasteries and cloisters?

JESUS TOLD them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit. He said, “There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people. A widow in that city kept after him: ‘My rights are being violated. Protect me!’

IN THE Gian Carlo Menotti opera The Consul, the character of Magda Sorel is trying to secure a visa so that she may rejoin her husband in another country. Her child has died; she herself is in danger; she is desperate but constantly put off. In the consul’s grim waiting room, she is required to fill out endless forms. In an aria she sings, “To this we’ve come . . . I’m asking for help and all you give me is papers—papers papers papers. . . .”

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

The woman in the parable was in a difficult situation. As a widow, her portrait would have been next to the word “powerless” in an ancient Near Eastern dictionary. Not only that, she was going up against a figure who did have great power, a judge, who was corrupt as well.

“Sometimes I get so mad at God,” one woman told the priest, “that I’d like to punch him right in the nose!” Yikes! It sounds irreverent, but that’s exactly what Jesus is saying in an amusing parable about a widow and a judge.

The existence of the Bible, as a book for the people, is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. —Immanuel Kant