“To praise, to bless, to preach” – Dominican Motto
Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
One of the great delights of having lifelong friends is that, if we’re paying attention, they will surprise us. Just when we think we know them through and through, they say or do something that makes us look at them with brand new eyes.
The parables are like that. The widow and the judge are in our DNA. We know the hard-hearted judge (and may even have some people in our lives who remind us of him), and, of course, the widow is us, begging God every day for the things that we need, and begging God for peace on earth.
But a song, The Widow and the Judge, by Colleen Fullmer, (animated by Sr. Martha Ann Kirk, CCVI, shocked me into a new way of looking at this iconic story, and I’ve never seen it the same since. What if the needy widow isn’t us, begging God to give us what we need, but God? What if God is the widow, knocking on the doors of OUR hearts, and we’re the judge, withholding the good things needed for true peace on earth?
What if WE’RE not the ones seeking justice, but God, begging US to do justice? That then begs the question: if we hear the widow (God) knocking, do we finally give in and do real justice? Justice, justice shall you seek, says Deuteronomy 16:20
And let’s not domesticate that widow. Abraham Heschel writes that “God is raging in the prophets’ words.” It’s impossible not to hear her.
And that last line of today’s gospel section really hits home. WILL God find faith on earth when Christ returns? There are reports of an invigorated younger generation of Catholics. May it ever be so.
Kathy McGovern ©2025 www.thestoryandyou.com
