THROUGH UNTRUE
Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P.
Praying for justice is like wrestling with God, especially when He appears unmoved by our persistent pleading. We want to scream at God amid the worsening injustice we see around us: “Awake O Lord, why do you sleep? You see our oppression and misery, but why do you hide your face?” (Psalm 44:23). Some are tempted to consider praying as a waste of time and effort.
Still, Jesus tells us to pray persistently, just like the widow in today's gospel reading. She endlessly nags a judge so she can obtain the justice she seeks (Luke 18:3). Jesus' promise is consoling: "Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly" (Luke 18:6-8).
The trouble is, God often does this in ways we don't expect.
I remember one of our late Dominicans, Fr. Romeo Asuzano who tragically died at the age of 48 in Dagat-dagatan, Navotas. He was going back to the parish church with his bicycle when three drug addicts held him up on a bridge on C-3 Road in North Bay Boulevard. The suspects threatened to kill him if he did not give them his bike. He let go of the bike, but they stabbed him to death just the same. Nobody knew he was killed until his parishioners started looking for him when he failed to show up for his Sunday Mass.
When he was assigned to that drug-infested place, Fr. Romy unceasingly prayed to be an instrument of conversion and rehabilitation. He believed that if he could convince even just one drug addict to reform himself, that would be an answered prayer. Ironically, it was a drug addict who killed him.
But who knows? God might have answered Fr. Romy's prayer by giving him more than what he prayed for. By his violent and tragic death, Fr. Romy had identified himself with the many others in Dagat-dagatan who suffer this kind of death almost every day. He might have failed in his aspiration to reform a drug addict, but he succeeded in being configured with Christ who suffered a brutal death on Calvary.
Indeed, God answers our prayers in a way we seldom expect. I was told that when Ninoy Aquino decided to return to the Philippines, his mother, Aurora Aquino, stormed heaven for his safety. But shortly after landing in Manila, he was brutally assassinated.
Being an active Dominican tertiary, Aurora requested that the body of Ninoy lie in state at the Santo Domingo Church for nine days. She made no effort to disguise the bullet wound that had disfigured his face. She wanted Ninoy's mangled body to be the strongest protest against those who murdered him. People must see in Ninoy the face of injustice: ugly, cruel, and despicable.
Aurora originally asked God for Ninoy's safety. But God granted her something greater than what she prayed for. God gave her and the nation, a hero, or better yet, a martyr who incarnated the gospel truth: “Unless the grain of wheat dies, it cannot grow and bear much fruit” (John 12:24).
For in truth, Ninoy did more than fuel the first stirrings of what is now known as the “People Power” revolution. He made a REVELATION. By giving up his life, he revealed to the world that the Filipino is, in his words, “worth dying for."
Praying for justice is like wrestling with God. But it is a match that we should not hope to win. We must hope to lose, firmly believing that God knows the best way to answer our prayer. This is perhaps why the gospel reading today ends with these words: "When the Son of Man comes, will He find FAITH on the earth?”