29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – October 19, 2025

St. Joseph – Wichita, KS

Exodus 17:8-13; Psalm 121:1-8; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 18:1-8

The Challenge We Face

Everyone thinks that atheism is the great problem of our time, that people don’t come to church because they don’t believe in God, or something like that. But that’s not true! The great problem of our time is not a rejection of God, but a rejection of the doctrine of Original Sin, the idea that we humans have a wound within, that we’re captive in some way, that we need rescued, redeemed, saved. That’s what it is.

The story that cemented this in my brain was the story of Yehiel De-Nur. So in 1961, Adolf Eichmann, one of the masterminds of the Jewish Holocaust—in 1961, Eichmann was captured and put on trial for his crimes at Nuremberg. One of the people that testified at his trial was this man, Yehiel De-Nur. Yehiel was a survivor of the death camps, was literally put on the train to Auschwitz by Eichmann. But during his testimony, face to face with Eichmann, Yehiel started sweating, breathing heavily, and fainted. Very dramatic! Several decades later, Yehiel was being interviewed by Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. And Wallace asked him “why” he was overcome; was it fear, anger, rage? And Yehiel’s shocking answer was this, “Not hatred. But hatred about human beings. I was afraid of myself.” Face to face with the man that sent him to the death camps, Yehiel was overcome because he realized that this was no demon, no. This man who had sent millions to their death, he was an ordinary human being, exactly like Yehiel. Yehiel told Wallace, “I am capable of doing this. I am exactly like him.” Bingo. Yehiel was dead right, he had put his finger on a deep truth. The truth that within the human heart—within my heart and within your heart—within the human heart is an awful wound, a wound that would allow us to do even something that terrible.

But this is precisely what we as modern humanity deny! We don’t reject God, the vast majority of American believe God exists. All of our parishioners who no longer go to Mass believe God exists. We reject this wound, this something within our heart, what we call Original Sin—that there is something deeply, deeply wounded within me, within my heart, in need of salvation.

We deny that the problem is HERE (*point to heart*)—and if we deny that the problem is a problem of the human heart, within the human heart, then by the process of elimination, the problem must be out there. And in that worldview, “faith” and “church” and “religion”—well it just becomes: be a nice person, everyone pretty much goes to heaven, don’t be a jerk. And that is the “religion” of the modern day; I meet people every day (even people that go to church!) that say that. And in this world, really I just need to focus on politics and laws, and community programs, and better schools, and better sports for kids, and social justice—we have an idol of this utopian world where everything is perfect! That’s the idol of our day and age.

My Idol

Let me tell you about an idol. So when I was a pastor up in Rice County, one of the people that really influence me was a priest by the name of Fr. John Riccardo, a retreat he gave. And at one point in the retreat he asked us to name our idols. And I thought, “I don’t have an idol. No little gold statues at my house, thank you!” And yeah, we would never bow down to a golden calf thinking it could give me happiness and freedom. But what is an idol? An idol, Fr. Riccardo said, is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. Anything that is so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol.

And so as I was praying on it, this scene—this scene from our Gospel came to mind. That last phrase: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” You know, there was a famous homily given by John Paul II—it was the 20th Anniverary of his election as the pope, the universal shepherd of the Church. That day was the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, today’s Gospel from the beginning of the 18th chapter of Luke’s Gospel. And on that day, twenty years into his papacy, John Paul II preached on that phrase: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” And in front of everyone, in front of the vast crowd, he conducted a public examination of conscience, asking whether he in his ministry had done enough to ensure that when the Son of Man returns he would find faith on earth. The humility was devastating! There he was, John Paul II, his place in history already secure: the fall of Communism, the new Catechism and Code of Canon Law, all of his encyclicals, World Youth Day, all of his travels around the world, the proclamation of the Gospel, leading us into the new millennium—all of that and more! And there he was, asking of himself, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

But what is the context of this passage? The chapter begins with Luke saying, “Then Jesus told them a parable about the importance of praying always without growing weary.” That almost never happens! That the evangelist tells us what a parable means before he tells us the parable. But in this one, we must be so thick that he had to tell us, “Here’s the meaning, then I’ll tell it to you. Then Jesus told them a parable about the importance of praying always without growing weary.” And it’s the parable about the widow and the dishonest judge where the widow kept bothering the dishonest judge. Again and again and again—kept bothering him and pestering him. And finally he said, “I will render a just judgement for her lest she come and strike me!”

And Jesus says to his disciples, “Attend, pay attention to the unjust judge: if he should act in this way—how do you think your Father in heaven, who is good, will respond to those who cry out to him day and night without ceasing? He will not delay in helping them.”

And then my idol was clear to me—and I’ll confess it to you publicly. I have an idol—that if I am just really really good, and really really faithful, and I ran my parish just right, and implemented all of the best practices and got the best people…then our collection would skyrocket, and we would be able to build the building we needed, and people would come to Mass and truly want to be there, and they would pray the Rosary and have an Adoration hour every week, and we could open a school, and the whole town would convert…if I’m just really really faithful and work hard that’ll happen.

And as I was praying about all of this, my idol became clear to me. My idol was me. A pride and self-reliance. A utopian dream that I could create a perfect parish. And I realized—the day that all of that came true is the day that there will be no faith left at my parish because we will have stopped calling out to God day and night.

A Renewed Prayer

And so my prayer is different now. It’s a simple begging. Reminding myself to cry out to the Lord day and night.

The objection we give is, “No, we can fix everything! Once so and so is elected, once so and so bill is passed, once such and such happens in the Middle East—then everything will be utopia!!”

But the response is Yehiel De-Nur. No. Until we come to terms with the fact that Original Sin is real—that the problem resides in the human heart, that there is something deeply, deeply wounded within me, within my heart, in need of salvation— Until we recognize the necessity for us to pray always without becoming weary— Faith in the Son of Man— 

I’ll close with this. Many scholars point out that in our first reading—so it’s the scene where Moses extends his hands, and as long as his hands are extended the Israelites are victorious in battle, so they hold up his hands—many scholars point out the “cruciform” position of Moses, this cruciform position of prayer. Jesus—Jesus himself continues to offer himself, cruciform, in prayer to the Father at all times. Here in this Mass, we come to participate in that cruciform offering of our lives, that cruciform prayer. Here we begin to pray always without becoming weary.