Overview:

Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time

A Reflection for Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time

When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

Find today’s readings here.

The Gospel today evokes a scene—or better, a feeling—we all know: a kid tugging and tugging at a parent’s sleeve, not letting up. That’s not the actual image Jesus gives us; he describes a scene between a widow and an unjust judge. But not unlike a persistent child, she keeps pulling and pulling, refusing to give up.

She won’t stop, give up, or disappear. (And honestly, even as a 40-something-year-old man, I can still remember what I was like as a kid—and I’m not entirely sure my poor mother would say I’ve grown out of it.) She keeps showing up in front of a judge who doesn’t care about God or people, demanding justice. Again and again. Relentless.

We could read this parable in a straightforward way.

The judge is unjust; God is not. Even if the judge eventually says yes to her demand for justice, then God, who is merciful and attentive, will respond all the more. And that’s true. But it’s not the whole story.

Jesus is doing something more here, and he’s doing it with a bit of humor. You can almost picture this weary official thinking, If I don’t act, she’s going to give me a black eye. Some commentaries even say the Greek points in that direction. The scene is vivid: this determined, fearless woman practically chasing a powerful man through his own courtroom. We’re meant to have a little laugh.

And yet beyond the humor lies something more serious.

In Jesus’ world, widows were among the most vulnerable. If they had no children to support them, they had nothing—no protection, no standing, no leverage. The Bible often groups them with the orphans and the migrants, the ones the community is commanded to defend. A God-fearing judge should have been the first to help her. But this judge doesn’t care.

And still she keeps coming.

It’s easy—almost too easy—to place ourselves in the widow’s shoes. We know what it feels like to wait, to face delay, to wonder if anything will ever change. And when life wears us down, when prayers feel unanswered, our hope can fade. We can become like those who “have faith for a time but in a season of testing fall away.” Quietly discouraged. Resigned.

And when we stop praying, when we drift, it’s not that God stops working. It’s that we lose our grounding. We see only the world falling apart. We forget that God is in the story at all.

And so Jesus ends with a question that cuts through all the easy interpretations:

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Not: “Will God still be faithful?” God’s mercy isn’t in doubt. The question is about us. Are we still crying out? Still turning to God with the widow’s stubborn trust?

Because in the end, the widow is someone who has no one to depend on but God alone. No support. No status. No safety net. Only God.

And there are moments when that’s true for us as well; when everything else falls away and all that remains is God with us. When we, too, reach that place where nothing seems left except God being with us.

If we can trust God even a little like she does—showing up, crying out, staying close—then maybe Jesus’ question becomes less of a warning and more of an invitation.

When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith in us?

Ricardo da Silva, S.J., is an associate editor of America Media and the host of the podcast “Preach.”