Is there anyone who has not had to live with the challenge to faith of unanswered prayer, of asking and not receiving? I doubt it. And standing by what Jesus says in today's Gospel, there are often cases where our requests have not been for stones and scorpions, and yet we have been denied the bread and fish, either for ourselves or those for whom we have prayed.

Luke's Gospel today develops this important theme along two lines: the importunate friend illustrates the need for persistence in prayer; while Jesus reassures us that God gives good gifts in answer to prayer. When we are told to "knock and the door will be opened", Jesus paints the imaginative picture of a sleepy friend responding to a midnight crisis. But as always, Luke understands God's way of giving as exceeding that between human friends.

Prayer is here portrayed as bothersome, and God as the kind of friend who can get bothered. Also, as we read from Genesis in the first reading, God is patient, He waits on us, even when we literally abuse of His patience. Another important point made in today's readings: How will we let God teach us to take stock of our desires and put them right? We can begin to learn that the silence that seems to be just an unanswered prayer is God's way to answer our prayer.

Prayer is one aspect of our culture which is becoming really paradoxical. While it is more than evident that prayer, in the forms and structure we've known for so long, is in crisis, at the same time there is a myriad of ways of praying cropping up everywhere. More people seem to be genuinely in search of new ways how to pray, in spite of a social and cultural context that is becoming less and less religious.

In this we have also to be honest to God and to ourselves: prayer is in crisis not just in the highly secularised environments. Even in our communities of practising believers, we have difficulties to teach and to learn how to pray. So again it makes much sense for us to repeat with Jesus' disciples: "Lord, teach us to pray".

There are basic questions about prayer that we cannot avoid. To whom, and why, do we have to pray if we believe in a God who knows beforehand what we need and desire? If God has His plan for our lives, do we pray so that He may perhaps change His plans? These and many other questions continue to come up in an age when we tend to reason everything out. Besides, we live in a culture when time is money and efficiency is the order of the day. So we may easily be tempted to think that there is no time left for prayer, or that prayer is waste of time and alienation.

But prayer is not escapism. Prayer re-establishes the equilibrium between what tranquillises our restless heart without in any way turning a shoulder on the demands of daily existence and on our personal and social responsibilities. Prayer in fact can be spiritual as much as political. In the Gospel, Jesus is teaching us how to pray, how to persist in praying, and how to trust the Father who is always there. In the first reading, Abraham's prayer is one of intercession for his people, a form of prayer we need so much to rediscover in this day and age.

Lastly, but not the least, prayer has to be humble. Prayer in fact does not make God change His mind. It rather changes our attitude and makes us see what otherwise we would never capture. Newman's prayer in this sense remains classic: Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on! Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene - one step enough for me.