Once, when I was serving at a retreat centre in Florida, a young man came into the chapel and knelt before the statue of Saint Anthony. He did not bow before the Holy Eucharist. Later he came to me and asked, "Are you a priest? Can you pray over me?" I prayed for him, and then I asked why he had come.
He began to cry. For more than a year he had been praying for a job. He was highly qualified, yet every interview ended in disappointment. "Why is God showing partiality? Why is God not answering my prayer?" he asked. I asked him whether he was Catholic. Yes. Did he attend Mass every Sunday and on holy days? Only once in a while. Did he receive Holy Communion when he went? Of course. When had he last been to Confession? He told me he did not go to Confession at all. Then I asked him a question that I want every Christian to take seriously: will God listen to the prayer of a sinner?
When Sin Becomes a Barrier
Our instinct is to say immediately, "Of course God listens." But Scripture forces us to look more carefully. In John 9:31, the man born blind says, "We know that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to one who worships Him and obeys His will." It sounds very clear and categorical, but notice who is speaking. This is not Jesus making the statement, and it is not presented as a direct declaration from God. It is the man who had been born blind, after Jesus healed him, answering the Pharisees who were questioning him.
So I do not want to build the teaching only on the words of that man. We have to ask another question: does God Himself say the same thing elsewhere in Scripture? That is why I turn to Isaiah. There God says, "Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good" (Isaiah 1:15-17). Again, Isaiah says that the Lord's hand is not too short to save and His ear is not too dull to hear, but our iniquities become barriers between us and God (Isaiah 59:1-2). First Peter 3:12 says that the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are open to their prayer, while His face is against those who do evil.
When I say that God does not listen to sinners, I do not mean that God is unable to hear the sound of a sinner's prayer. God hears. What I mean is that sin becomes a barrier to a favourable answer. We cannot deliberately keep saying no to God in our life and at the same time expect Him simply to say yes to everything we ask.
Second Chronicles gives us the way back: if God's people humble themselves, pray, seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, He will hear, forgive and heal (2 Chronicles 7:14). Repentance is not a punishment added to prayer. Repentance clears the relationship so that we can return to God.
The Gospel of the ten lepers also brings us to faith. Ten cried out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." All ten were cleansed, but the one who returned heard something more: "Rise and go your way. Your faith has saved you" (Luke 17:19). What kind of faith should we have?
True Faith, Strong Faith, Unadulterated Faith
Second Kings tells us about King Hezekiah. He trusted in the Lord, held fast to Him, did not depart from following Him and kept the commandments the Lord had given through Moses. Then Scripture says, "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered" (2 Kings 18:5-7).
Faith is fundamental. Our spiritual life begins with our relationship with God, and that relationship must grow into constant contact with God, intimacy with God and finally union with God. But the foundation has to be right. If the foundation is wrong, the whole spiritual life becomes unstable. So what kind of faith do we need? True faith. Strong faith. Unadulterated faith.
I once met a Catholic man at the Divine Retreat Centre in Kerala who wanted to leave before the retreat ended. He had made a vow at a Hindu temple and was determined to attend the celebration there and make an offering because he believed it would help his business prosper. I asked him, "Do you believe in that deity?" His answer was very modern: "Father, all the gods are the same. Hindu God, Muslim God and Christian God are different rivers, and finally all the rivers flow into the same sea."
That may sound attractive, but it is not Catholic faith. I told him plainly that this was adulterated faith. If I profess Jesus Christ as Lord, I cannot keep one faith for Sunday Mass and another faith for whatever promise of prosperity or protection is offered somewhere else. Our faith must be true, strong and unadulterated.
Hezekiah did not simply have an opinion about God. He was faithful to God. Faithfulness has layers. First, I have to be faithful to God. Then I have to be faithful to myself. Only then can I be faithful to you. From there comes faithfulness to my state of life, whether family life, priesthood or religious life, and faithfulness in my profession, career and responsibilities.
I remember standing in a shop in Kerala waiting to pay for some clothes. The customer in front of me had a bill for 5,000 rupees, but the cashier misread it and asked for only 500. The man immediately paid 500 and walked away. Then I recognised him. He had been the convener of a convention I had preached at the previous year. I followed him and asked why he had not corrected the cashier. He told me he was struggling financially and that God had given him this gift.
I said, "That god is not God." God does not bless me by teaching me to cheat another person. If I believe in God, faith has to become faithfulness. Otherwise my religious words and my actual life are travelling in opposite directions. Hezekiah believed, he was faithful, he followed God, he held fast to the Lord and he kept the commandments. Then came the result: the Lord was with him, and the Lord gave him victory in his endeavours.
Hold Fast to the Lord
Holding fast to God also means refusing to abandon the Church because of the sins of human beings within her. The young man in Florida had walked away from the Church after being scandalised by a priest when he was eighteen or nineteen. Many people do this. They see mistakes, scandals or sins in priests, bishops, religious or other Catholics, and then they leave the Church because they do not understand what the Church is.
I explain it by speaking about an internal and an external aspect of the Church. At the heart of the Church are the Holy Trinity, the Word of God, the Sacraments, grace, the saints and the holy angels. Then there is the visible human life of the Church: Popes, bishops, priests, religious, lay people, parishes and institutions. In that visible human life there can be mistakes, blunders, wrongdoing and sin. But I will not abandon the holy mystery of the Church because one of her human members fails. Even if a parish priest or bishop makes a mistake, or even if a Pope says something wrong, I will not betray Christ and leave His Church.
That man began to understand what had happened in his own life. He also told me that he and the woman with whom he was living had never married civilly or in the Church, although they already had a child. I spoke to him plainly. For a Catholic, sexual union belongs within marriage. It is not something God has given us outside the covenant of husband and wife. I told him that they needed to put their life in order and receive the Sacrament of Marriage.
He went home and did exactly that. Their marriage was blessed in the Church and their child was baptised. Later he and his wife attended the retreat together. When I met him again, he told me that he had found work, his wife had also found work, and their child, who had suffered from epilepsy, was no longer having the attacks they had previously experienced. That was the testimony he gave me.
Sin is not a small thing. Hosea 5:4 speaks in severe language about a spirit of adultery dwelling within the people. All these sexual sins happen because of the evil spirit dwelling in us. The spirit of holiness will be there when the Triune God is gloriously dwelling in the soul and we are not in sin. When we are in mortal sin, when we say yes to the devil and no to God, the evil spirit comes and dwells in the heart. Then that heart is no longer living as the temple of God. This is why the Christian life cannot be separated from repentance, Confession, obedience and holiness.
Forgiving Love Is Supernatural
The same man had another wound. His elder brother had acted unjustly toward him over their father's property, and for years he carried the grievance. He asked me what he should do. I told him to release unconditional forgiveness and to pray earnestly for his brother.
Forgiveness is easy to say and very difficult to live. Jesus does not tell us merely to stop speaking about the enemy. He says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). Luke makes it even more concrete: do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you (Luke 6:27-28). Saint Paul says, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them" (Romans 12:14), and if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink (Romans 12:20). That is why I call forgiving love a supernatural act. Human nature wants to repay injury with injury. Jesus asks for something greater: pray, do good and bless.
I use the words blessing and cursing very directly. Blessing means that I am releasing the power of God toward another person. Cursing means that I am allowing the power of evil to work through my hatred, my words and my desire for another person's destruction. A person filled with the Holy Spirit should not be cursing other people.
Sometimes we even curse in a very religious way. We say, "God will ask you," meaning, "I hope God punishes you for what you did to me." Look at Jesus on the Cross. His response was not, "Father, punish them." His prayer was, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." That is blessing.
And do not live in fear of somebody else's curse. Scripture says, "The One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). Christ has redeemed us from the curse (Galatians 3:13). If Jesus dwells in you, hold fast to Him.
I remember a young woman who had suffered brutal sexual violence from a relative when she was very young and who later lived for years with severe, persistent bleeding. She came to one of our retreats in Bombay in a state of profound physical and emotional suffering. During Eucharistic Adoration, she later testified that she saw a bright light coming from the Holy Eucharist and saw Jesus in that light. She said she heard Him telling her that He wanted to heal her and calling her to release forgiveness toward the man who had abused her.
The Scriptures that came into that moment were the same ones Jesus gives all of us: love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, do good, bless and do not curse. She cried out the name of Jesus. Scripture says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13; Acts 2:21; Joel 2:32), and that everyone who calls on His name must turn away from wickedness (2 Timothy 2:19).
She later testified that the bleeding stopped and her strength returned. When she came back, she was able to walk without the support she had previously needed. She later married and had children. I share this as her testimony of what happened in her life. For me, it remains a powerful witness to forgiving love.
Let Faith Become a Life
The man in Florida also acted on the teaching. At Christmas he went to his elder brother, brought him a cake, knelt before him and asked forgiveness for carrying a grudge for ten years. His brother was shocked. The younger man then asked him for a blessing. The elder brother did not even consider himself a believer. He said he was not worthy to bless him and did not know how. Finally, with a trembling hand, he simply said, "Jesus, bless him." Both brothers began to cry. The elder brother's wife came, and then his son came and asked what was happening. In front of them, the elder brother said, "I saw Jesus today in my younger brother." He admitted that he was the one who had done wrong. For ten years he had hidden the will their father had written and withheld from his younger brother the share of the ancestral property that the will gave him. Now he said he would hand over the will and give his brother the share that belonged to him. Later the younger brother gave this testimony publicly.
That is the power of forgiving love. True faith cannot remain only in our mouth. Faith must become faithfulness. Faithfulness must become following. Following means holding fast to the Lord, keeping His commandments, turning away from sin, blessing instead of cursing and forgiving even when forgiveness costs us something.
When we are liberated from sin and from the snares of the evil one, the supernatural indwelling presence of God can fill our life. Our mind begins to become the mind of Christ. Prayer is no longer only a list of things we want God to do for us. We ourselves are being changed by the One to whom we pray.
Hold fast to the Lord. Let your faith be true, strong and unadulterated. Be faithful to God, faithful in your vocation and faithful in the ordinary responsibilities of life. Release forgiving love. Bless and do not curse. Turn away from what separates you from God, and let the Lord dwell within you. Hallelujah.