FASTER: SLOW JUSTICE IS NO JUSTICE

Catholic Homily/Sunday Reflection

29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

October 17, 2010

Reflection on Lk 18:1-8

I came across the poster of the new movie of Dwayne Johnson entitled FASTER: SLOW JUSTICE IS NO JUSTICE. This movie is perhaps where he puts the Law into his hands. Hands that throw hard punches against the bad guys in order to put things back in order. Sometimes, I wish I could do the same. I wish I could make Justice run faster.

In my humble experience in the practice of law, I could say that the wheel of justice runs relatively slow. This is partly because there are few Judges and plenty of cases clogging the dockets.

If it is a high profile case, involving famous and powerful people, with all the media coverage, the judge may give it some special attention. But if the case involves insignificant people, justice is slower.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus actually tells us that DIVINE JUSTICE IS FASTER.

For us to understand this, Jesus relates God to be like that of a Judge.

A judge, whose impiety made him no fear of God and because of his power,  no respect for man. 

In gist, God in the parable is a stone cold judge who could not be influenced by power or money.

Then this judge happens to have in his docket of cases, the case of the widow.

The widow is hard pressed in her case because her opponent is rich and powerful. She asks the judge to render a JUST DECISION for her against her adversary.

The case of the widow is the least of the concern of the judge. She is insignificant and does not deserve to receive special attention, especially since there are other cases that are far more important things for the judge to attend. So the judge pretends not to notice her, but she continues to come to him everyday to appeal to him.

Then the judge realizes that if he will not attend to her concern- if he will not render a JUST DECISION on her case, she will continue to bother him and eventually will destroy his reputation that will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life.

So the judge, a person who is not influenced by power or money, immediately attends to the concern of the insignificant widow and renders a just decision on her case.

This is in essence Divine Justice. It is delivered to us FASTER because God attends to our case no matter how insignificant we are. Some of our prayers before God are petty, childish and even confusing, yet GOD listens to us and renders a JUST DECISION based on what is good for us at that moment. It may not be the answers that we have been looking for but we can trust that it is a JUST DECISION.

DIVINE JUSTICE IS FASTER because SLOW JUSTICE IS NO JUSTICE AT ALL.