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The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.

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Now this evening, I'm going to talk about the presence of God, specifically how we can

become more constantly aware of God's presence.

But before getting into the details of our topic, I need to set the scene a little bit.

I'm approaching our topic this evening as an answer to a question about how to pray.

But this question is not the question that the disciples asked the Lord in Matthew's Gospel

when they asked him how to pray,

and then he gave them the Our Father. My question tonight is slightly different. It is a question

that arises from a statement in Luke's Gospel. In Luke's Gospel, we hear the parable about the

woman and the unjust judge, and how the woman through perseverance was able to get justice.

Now, it is the introduction to this parable that I want to highlight, for St. Luke introduces

the parable with the following statement. Then Jesus told them a parable about the necessity

to pray always without becoming weary.

So there are a couple of things to highlight in this quote from the gospel.

First, that the Lord is using the parable to exhort the disciples to pray always without

becoming weary. And that is a tall order, but it becomes even taller when we consider

that Jesus considers this necessary. And I should note that the word necessity here in this passage

is not just an artifact of translation, but it's actually in the Greek text. And so this is strong language and a big task.

And we must not try to downplay the obligation to pray always. What is even more noteworthy is

...