MY HELP COMES FROM THE LORD

XXIX SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Luke 18:1-8

Psalm 121 gives us the theme for this Sunday’s liturgy:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains;

  from where shall come my help?

My help shall come from the Lord

  who made heaven and earth.

May he never allow you to stumble!

  Let him sleep not, your guard.

No, he sleeps not nor slumbers,

  Israel’s guard.

The Lord will guard you from evil,

  he will guard your soul.

The Lord will guard your going and coming

  both now and for ever.

Indeed, my help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. From whom else would it come? Only the Lord can keep me from evil, because he makes me company throughout my life, “in my going and coming both now and for ever”. In Him, we can put our trust and we can always approach Him with confidence. This psalm is like a profession of faith of the believer who entrusts himself to the Lord.

In this Sunday’s liturgy, we are given two examples of prayer as an insistent plea. During their long journey through the desert, the people of Israel were attacked by the Amalekites. The Israelites were forced to go to war to safeguard their very existence. However, on their own, they would have failed. They needed the intervention of a higher power. And Moses went to the hilltop and prayed with raised arms. We may be surprised to find God intervening in human battles. How can be God associated with violence, even in a war that may be considered legitimate? The Bible helps us to discover a God always present in the middle of people going with them through all pleasant and unpleasant moments of life. Only those who choose to ignore history may be surprised. Human history is full of violence, with nations against nations. We may think evil of all those who preceded us, thus condemning them. In our self-righteousness, we want to throw the past into the dustbin of forgetfulness. However, we are as much prone to violence and war as they were. And when war comes, we need the presence of God in our midst, to find the hope that will lead us to peace again.

Moses with raised arms on the top of the hill stands as a model of insistent prayer for the sake of his people. In the gospel, Jesus presents a widow who doesn’t get tired of pleading for justice before a corrupt judge, forcing him to attend to her. We must do the same with God, being certain that God will not delay in doing justice “to his chosen who cry to him day and night”.

Let us pray at all times, pleading for peace and justice.