A Meditation on Prayer

Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post

The following lead paragraph from a National Post article by Charles Lewis on the recent horrific events south of the border caught the eye of yours truly. 

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/this-is-firepower-that-1791-never-imagined#comments-area

The most predictable things about mass shootings are the discussions on gun control that follow and a politician offering his prayers. As if those prayers could do anything to undo the carnage and comfort the families.

Personally, I have always found prayers offered on my behalf, those offered during some very difficult times and those offered during the course of an uneventful mundane week, to be a great comfort that have helped yours truly to avoid despair and/or to avoid adding too much weight to normal everyday pressures.

Mr. Lewis' article has some merit, but he lacks an appreciation for how prayer can and does work for those who trust in God's mercy. Furthermore, he strays dangerously close to being an arbiter of who and what prayers ("As if those prayers...") are heard before the throne of Almighty God. Doesn't God hear all prayers? Isn't it up to God how He answers prayers?

The preceding thoughts are not mere mental evasion. Those thoughts are predicated on the lived experience of countless men, women and children who have faced the cruelest of circumstances. We have assurances from Jesus Himself that we are not alone, that God loves those who keep His commandments (St. John 14: 15, 21). And, if Jesus is Who He says He is, and for those who directly witnessed His triumphs over sin and death He most certainly is Who He says He is, then we can trust that there is hope, healing and a heaven of life everlasting if we enter into a communion with Him and His Church on His terms.

Indeed, no mere human can undo the damage done by the shooters. Strange that pundits miss the cause and avoid the true nature of the challenge to keep hope. As Archbishop Chaput has noted:

The people using the guns in these loathsome incidents are moral agents with twisted hearts. And the twisting is done by the culture of sexual anarchy, personal excess, political hatreds, intellectual dishonesty, and perverted freedoms that we’ve systemically created over the past half-century.

Faith and graced works can prevent and undo the worst that human beings can do to each other and the natural world. Sadly, Western societies are in the midst of a large scale abandonment of the One, man's Creator, Who changes hearts and minds for good.

If we require a reminder of how evil can run rampant and trample the innocent, consider how godlessness has created the situation we now face. One would have thought that the devastation wrought by 70 years of God-less Soviet Communism would have taught us all an abundance of humility, the humility to trust in God and to forge lives of peace.

In total, no fewer than 20 million Soviet citizens were put to death by the regime or died as a direct result of its repressive policies. This does not include the millions who died in the wars, epidemics and famines that were predictable consequences of Bolshevik policies, if not directly caused by them.

The victims include 200,000 killed during the Red Terror (1918-22); 11 million dead from famine and dekulakization; 700,000 executed during the Great Terror (1937-38); 400,000 more executed between 1929 and 1953; 1.6 million dead during forced population transfers; and a minimum 2.7 million dead in the Gulag, labor colonies and special settlements.

To this list should be added nearly a million Gulag prisoners released during World War II into Red Army penal battalions, where they faced almost certain death; the partisans and civilians killed in the postwar revolts against Soviet rule in Ukraine and the Baltics; and dying Gulag inmates freed so that their deaths would not count in official statistics.

If we add to this list the deaths caused by communist regimes that the Soviet Union created and supported—including those in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia—the total number of victims is closer to 100 million. That makes communism the greatest catastrophe in human history.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810

That too may politicians want to bring back aspects of a cadaver-making political system is beyond reason. Add the fascist desecrations committed against the Jewish people to the sacrileges committed against the human race by communists and you have a century that should convince even the most skeptical agnostic (and the secular religionist) that a world without Christian prayer is a world of unimaginable chaos and destruction. If, for no other reason, one acknowledges Christianity to be a civilizing force, then isn't that worth retaining for the good of the innocent who would otherwise suffer at the hands of barbarous men?

In a way, Mr. Lewis answers his own doubts about the efficacy of prayer. He refers to a document written by men of faith, imperfect humans as they were, who prayed into existence documents heralding the identity and course of the emergent American nation.

For those who would argue against me, I would suggest they read another great American document, The Declaration of Independence, which guarantees citizens the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Taking up Mr. Lewis objections for a moment, not even a document such as the Declaration could prevent the mass murders we have witnessed in recent days. Shouldn't, then, Americans just toss aside their vaunted Declaration (and Constitution) as a worthless testimony to idealistic nonsense meant to tease people into submission so they'll fight a war to defend some imagined liberty? No.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are like the Church's creeds to which men bind their hearts and minds to refine and configure the intellect and will to the faith that liberates. As great as the Declaration and the Constitution are, only people of goodwill sustained by Christian faith can enact the vision those documents propose. People of faith defend the fact that inalienable rights are gifts from God, not from the state.

Mr. Lewis's passion for balance reveals a necessary sanity.

No American in his or her right mind should ever suggest a ban on all weapons. Farmers, hunters and target-shooting enthusiasts have every right to own guns. Even ownership of handguns can be justified depending on circumstances.

All these weapons can be lethal. But they are nowhere near as deadly as what mass shooters use today. The National Rifle Association and others will argue good Americans should not be punished for the evil deeds of a few bad apples. It is a pathetic argument because saving Americans from mass killings should be the priority.

On Platitudes

Mr. Lewis would be right to confine his criticism to the condemnation of empty sympathies mouthed by hypocrites. A phrase such as 'I'll pray for you' can sound like an empty platitude, especially when Catholic-In-Name-Only politicians such as Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden treat religion like a bathroom light switch they flick on when they need to (find a toilet to) relieve themselves.

Miracles large and small do happen in the midst of tragedies. One needs the eyes and ears of faith to discern those miracles. To obtain the necessary faith, we must request it from God. We must cooperate with God. That cooperation begins with a humble admission: we can do nothing without God. Or, to put it another way: with God we may do anything!

Consider the following thought:

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

Thomas Aquinas

Agnostics might look into the verified miracles wrought with the intercession of Blessed (soon-to-be Saint) John Henry Newman, or the some seventy profound miracles (of some 7000 miraculous recoveries) that have been confirmed at Lourdes, France, miracles attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes. Those who search for consolation might enter into the supernatural life and experience something of the confidence that liberates hearts and minds from an otherwise overwhelming competition with man's sin and destruction.

Genuine Sympathy

For the families severely affected by marauding gunmen, that is, the families who believe in prayer, the Post author should show them a little more consideration. Let prayers offered on behalf of the living and the dead be a welcome comfort in the most difficult of times.

To conclude, the author should consider, for example, that it was through prayer that human beings are made resilient. It was courage enabled by prayer that empowered soldiers to confront the horrors of the First and Second World Wars, to continue to serve their fellow human beings in their struggle to overcome evils so great that only the grace offered by a merciful God could help men and women and children remain hopeful in the face of overwhelming injustices and affronts to humanity caused by other human beings who, divorced from God-given humanity and reason, were hellbent on destruction.

Prayer connects us to God Who transcends the pettiness and callousness of man. God makes possible the acquisition of wisdom, fortitude, patience and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit to sustain us when this world denies goodness and beauty.

Prayer brings people into proximity with grace. God brings people together to overcome evil with good. Forgiveness is difficult without grace to help us avoid the temptation to vengeance and other irrational behaviour. Pope Saint John Paul II reminded the world, an entire world confronting the evils of communism, to be not afraid!

Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power. Help the Pope and all those who wish to serve Christ and with Christ’s power to serve the human person and the whole of mankind. Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization, and development. Do not be afraid. Christ knows ‘what is in man’. He alone knows it.

Those who remain close to Jesus understand that evil only appears to triumph. In those moments when we are weakest, God is strong in us (2 Corinthians 12:9-11). Our wounds allow God a space to work in us, just as the wounds of Jesus made a space for us in God.

Prayer enables people to endure unimaginable hardship; prayer is needed for those in most need of the peace only God can give. God does not abandon us to despair. Rather, God gives grace to enable us to live with heroic virtue and unfailing hope in the face of man's inhumanity toward man.

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.