Once Christopher Coelho OFM, an artist, author, and composer was traveling in a bus in India. At a bus stand, a young man selling combs came to him to sell a comb. The man insisted that Christopher buys a comb. Pointing the combs to Christopher he began the conversation saying, ‘one for you sir.’ Christopher removed his cap and he was completely bald. They both had a smile. The comb seller did not give up, he said, ‘one for your daughter sir.’ Christopher said, ‘I have no daughter.’ ‘Then one for your wife sir’, said the man. Christopher said firmly, ‘I don't have one’. The comb seller still did not give up, ‘then please sir, buy one for me.’ In spite of its uselessness to him, because of the sheer persistence of the man the 'bald priest' finally bought a comb.
In Luke's Gospel, Christ presents us with a striking parable: a widow, marginalised and powerless in her society, approaches an unjust judge repeatedly, demanding justice. This judge, by his own admission, neither fears God nor cares about human opinion. Yet the widow's relentless persistence eventually moves him to grant her request—not from compassion, but simply to be rid of her troublesome appeals (Luke 18: 1-8). The parable concludes with Jesus's pointed question: if even an unjust judge can be moved by persistence, how much more will a loving God respond to His children who cry out to Him day and night?
We live in an age of instant gratification, where patience has become an increasingly rare virtue. In our work, our ministries, our prayer lives, and indeed in every meaningful endeavour, we face a subtle but devastating temptation: the impulse to give up. This abandonment often comes not from rational assessment but from emotional exhaustion, momentary discouragement, or the simple weariness of the journey.
Consider the absurdity of abandoning worthy pursuits at the first sign of difficulty. Has any mountaineer reached the summit by turning back at the first steep incline? Has any swimmer reached the distant shore by surrendering in midstream? Has any reader truly grasped a book's depths by closing it halfway through? The very question exposes the irrationality of our surrenders. We abandon not because continuation is impossible, but because it has become uncomfortable.
We must be discerning too. Not all tenacity is virtuous. There is a difference between perseverance and stubbornness. Stubbornness is the obstinate clinging to something unworthy, perhaps even destructive. It is self-will masquerading as determination, ego disguised as commitment. True perseverance, by contrast, begins with discernment. It requires us first to identify what is genuinely worth pursuing—justice, love, compassion, truth, growth in holiness. It means finding a door worth knocking at, a cause worth fighting for, a prayer worth repeating. Without this foundation, our persistence becomes mere obstinacy, potentially harmful to ourselves and others.
Perseverance, then, is fundamentally an act of surrender—not to circumstances, but to a higher cause. It is aligning our will with divine truth and justice, and then holding fast come what may. This is not about asserting our strength, which would lead only to pride, but about allowing God to work through us until His purposes are accomplished. Perseverance is we hold on with God till the very end. Stubbornness is we work by ourselves till the very end.
History illuminates this truth powerfully. Francis of Assisi was not born a saint; he was a young man who could have easily returned to his comfortable life when faced with his father's rage and society's mockery. Yet he persevered in his calling, and Mohandas Gandhi became Mahatma—the "Great Soul"—not through a single dramatic act but through decades of persistent commitment to truth and non-violence, even when success seemed impossible. Abraham Lincoln's journey offers another testimony. Facing defeat after defeat in his pursuit of political office—losing elections, suffering personal tragedies, battling depression—he could have justifiably concluded that he was not meant for leadership. Yet he persisted through fourteen attempts before winning the presidency, and in doing so, he preserved a nation and freed millions from slavery. His greatness emerged not from an absence of obstacles but from his refusal to be defined by them.
There is profound wisdom in the image of the stonecutter. Strike after strike, the hammer falls upon the rock with no visible effect. Ten times, twenty times, fifty times—still the stone remains intact. Yet the one hundredth blow splits it cleanly in two. Was it that final strike alone that accomplished the task? Of course not. It was the accumulated impact of every blow that came before, each one necessary, and each one contributing to the eventual breakthrough. How often do we surrender at the ninety-ninth blow, never knowing that transformation was just one strike away? The stonecutter's art teaches us that progress is often invisible until suddenly it becomes undeniable. Seeds germinate in darkness before breaking through soil. Character is formed in hidden struggles before manifesting in crisis. Prayer works upon our souls in ways we cannot track until we look back and see how far we've come.
Josh Billings observed that the postage stamp's usefulness consists in its ability to stick to one thing until it reaches its destination. What a simple yet penetrating image! A stamp that falls off halfway through the journey fails entirely in its purpose, regardless of how far it travelled. Success is not measured by distance covered but by destination reached. In our modern context, where we are encouraged to keep our options open, to pivot quickly, to abandon what doesn't immediately yield results, this quality of adhesive commitment seems almost countercultural. Yet without it, we remain perpetual beginners, sampling everything, mastering nothing, arriving nowhere.
Faith is persistence. Jesus concludes the parable with a question that is also a promise: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" The kind of faith He seeks is not merely intellectual assent but this active, persistent trust—the faith that keeps knocking, keeps asking, keeps seeking, even when doors remain closed, answers delayed, and darkness surrounds.
This is the faith that transforms ordinary individuals into extraordinary witnesses. It made a young man from Assisi into St Francis, a shy lawyer into Mahatma Gandhi, a widow into a paradigm of faithful prayer. She had no power, no influence, no leverage. All she had was the rightness of her cause and her refusal to be silenced. She persisted not in her own strength but in her conviction that justice matters, that her case deserved a hearing, that truth would ultimately prevail.
The mountain peak awaits those who do not turn back at the first hurdle. The distant shore welcomes those who refuse to surrender in midstream. The fullness of understanding comes to those who read to the final page. And God's justice, love, and transformation flow to those who persist in prayer, in faith, in hope—until the very end.
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