Show Me How to Pray Without Ceasing

Homily for Sunday, October 19, 2025
The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Luke 18:1-8

In this morning’s Gospel lesson, “Jesus told his disciples… about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”  St. Paul writes something similar in his letter to the Thessalonians: “Pray without ceasing,”he writes (1 Thess 5:16-17).  Likewise the letter to the Ephesians urges us to “Pray in the Spirit at all times”(6:18).

To “pray always” sounds like a tall order; but I hear it’s possible.  My former spiritual director, a Jesuit, tells of being in the entourage of Pope John Paul II during his 1998 visit to Cuba. He said that the Pope, in the midst of his whirlwind schedule, yet managed to radiate an extraordinary presence, that he seemed to be “praying without ceasing.”   One of my seminary classmates told of traveling through Vermont and refilling at a gas station where the attendant had an Orthodox “prayer rope” around his wrist.  “I see you have a prayer rope,” my classmate said.  “Yes,” said the young man, “I’m trying to pray without ceasing,” repeating the “Jesus Prayer.”  Or again, one of my colleagues tells the story of his wife who, during a difficult pregnancy in which they feared they might lose the baby, learned to “pray always.”  They named their son Gabriel (after the angel)to help her remember to continue to “pray always.”  Jesus’ teaching that we are to “pray always”is a tall order; but I hear it’s possible.

Before I get to things like,“Might I want to ‘pray always?’” and, if I did want to pray always, “How might I go about it?” I want to address the prior question of, “Does prayer even ‘work?’”  

When it comes to the question, “Does prayer even work?’” we probably all remember such lines as,“God always answers prayer, but not necessarily when and how we like;” or, “God will answer our prayer in the way that God knows is best for us.”  While not untrue, saying that God answers prayer in the way God knows is best for us, or that God answers prayer but not necessarily when and how we like, risks regarding prayer merely as a transaction:  we ask, God delivers.

Perhaps the most helpful way to address the question, “Does prayer even work?” is to look to the example of Jesus himself.  Referring to Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane before his crucifixion, the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Heb 5:7).  At first these words might confuse because (as we know) after Jesus prayed in Gethsemane to “let this cup pass from me” (Matt 26:39), he was crucified.  But in his prayer (as we may also recall) Jesus likewise prayed, “Yet not what I want but what you want” (26:39).  These words are key.  By praying “Yet not what I want but what you want,” Jesus’ moves beyond a “transactional” kind of prayer and makes himself vulnerable to an open and authentic engagement with the Father.  This relationship is the point of prayer; this engagement with God is how prayer “works.”  For at its most basic, prayer is relationship with God.  When we open ourselves to relationship with God, when we make ourselves vulnerable both to tell God our desires and also to hear God’s desires, then we open ourselves to the possibility of transformation such that (as in the words of the Prayer Book) we come to “love what God commands and desire what he promises” (BCP, p219).  Prayer can be said to “work,” not in that we obtain the object of our prayer, but in that, as we take the time to pray, to vulnerably ask for what we desire, we open ourselves to deeper relationship with God.

Now, on to “Might I want to ‘pray always?’”  If prayer is defined as relationship with God, then according to Gregory of Nyssa, we all desire unceasing prayer.  For all of us, said Gregory, have within ourselves from the time of our creation in Genesis the ancestral memory of God holding us and looking into our eyes, his face inches away from ours, having just breathed into us the breath of life.  Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, said Gregory, we spend our lives trying to get back to closeness with God.  Whether we know it or not, we all want to “pray without ceasing.”

If we decided that we wanted to do so, how might we go about praying always? There are as many different ways to pray as there are people in the world.  But a great place to start might be to ask Jesus:  “Jesus, please show me how I might pray always.”  Or – if you’re not sure that you want to pray always – maybe pray, “Jesus, please show me if I want to pray always.”  And as with today’s parable of the unjust judge in which the widow “kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent,’” do not lose heart in your prayer, but keep asking how you might pray always or if you want to pray always.  For – as Jesus says in the parable – will not God answer the prayer of those who cry to him day and night?  “Will he delay long in helping them?”  

Why not this week – maybe even this afternoon – ask God to show you how you might pray always?  Or if you’re not sure if you want to pray always, ask God to show you if you want to pray always.  And why not persist in asking and do not lose heart?  We human beings were created for relationship with God, for infinite growth in God, and – as Augustine noted – our hearts will be restless until they rest in God.

I will leave us with a story from the Desert Fathers:

Abba Lot came to Abba Joseph and said: Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts. What more should I do?  The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire.  He said:  Why not become all fire?