When Is A Prayer Not A Prayer?

Many people are dumping on Cardinal Cupich for attending the Democratic National Convention this past week. A Catholic would be right for expressing concern about the styling of the Cardinal's "prayer", and right for pointing out a missed opportunity, more than criticizing a prelate for sashaying into a vestibule of hell, where priests can and should go to drive away demons and pull souls to safety before they fall fully into perdition.

Let's take a look at Cardinal Cupich' invocation.

We praise you, O God of all creation. Quicken in us a resolve to protect your handiwork. You are the source of every blessing that graces our lives and our nation.

Little wrong so far. "God of creation" might be considered a bit generic by those in an intimate communion of friendship with the Lord. His Eminence, however, is standing at ground zero of secular religion in the midst of an orgy of ideologues in the heartland of an empire at a crossroads.

We pray that you help us to truly understand and answer the sacred call of citizenship. We are a nation composed of every people and culture, united not by ties of blood, but by the profound aspirations of life, freedom, justice, and unbound hope. These aspirations are why our forebears saw America as a beacon of hope. And, with your steady guidance, Lord, may we remain so today.

Here beginneth the first lesson. Cardinal Cupich (CC) initiates a lecture in civics. He's defining the character of an ideal citizen. Is a prayer really the time and place to proffer a list of performance descriptors or learning outcomes? Perhaps the Cardinal's verbal sleight of hand is intended to call people to their better selves. His audience is mostly deaf, however, to inalienable rights and respect for the common good. Universal rights are routinely ignored by Americans comfortably situated at the left, hence the divide between those who advocate for the culture of life and those at the hard left who promote the culture of death. Cardinal Cupich probably should have shaken the dust from his feet after delivering a prayer in the midst of a gathering of zealots dedicated to worshipping Moloch and Baal.

In every generation, we are called to renew these aspirations, to re-weave the fabric of America. We do so when we live out the virtues that dwell in our hearts, but also when we confront our failures to root out ongoing injustices in our national life, especially those created by moral blindness and fear of the other.

The lecture continues.

We pray for peace, especially for people suffering the senselessness of war. But as we pray, we must also act, for building up the common good takes work. It takes love.

Okay, we're back to a prayer for a moment. Then, CC breaks off into an exhortation. His sentences border on the generic and are therefore drab, even if they do point to important values. Again, not the time and place for a lecture.

And so we pray: May our nation become more fully a builder of peace in our wounded world with the courage to imagine and pursue a loving future together. And may we as individual Americans become more fully the instruments of God’s peace.

"And may we as individual Americans...". To whom is CC speaking? (Rhetorical question.) 

Charity begins at home. How about a word or two about the immense pressures on citizens caused by a massive influx of non-citizens who, in far too many cases, are inflicting death and destruction on people who do not deserve to be put at risk of severe injury and lifelong disability? Oh, right! It's a prayer not a speech.

Guide us, Lord, in taking up our responsibility to forge this new chapter of our nation’s history. Let it be rooted in the recognition that for us, as for every generation, unity triumphing over division is what advances human dignity and liberty.

Fair enough. A petition offered to the Lord for specific graces: guidance, unity, respect for human dignity. Pearls before swine?

Let it be propelled by the women and men elected to serve in public life, who know that service is the mark of true leadership.

"Women and men." Too binary? Were there growls from within certain quarters of the gathering given the Donkey team's policies?

And let this new chapter of our nation’s history be filled with overwhelming hope, a hope that refuses to narrow our national vision, but rather, as Pope Francis has said, “to dream dreams and see visions” of what by your grace our world can become.

This message brought to you by... Pope Francis? Copyright infringement! Credit is due where credit is due... unless you're a certain serial plagiarist.

Acts 2:17-21 | ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

That last bit about "whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" would have been worth including in the Cardinal's presentation had he the fortitude to preach to misguided souls so very much in need of God's mercy. Mind you, the biblical passage would have been much more well received at a place where people likely know their Bible and take prayer and religion seriously, for example... at the RNC.

We ask all of this, trusting in your ever provident care for us. AMEN.

Provident care? With abortion and vasectomy services offered free of charge by a corporate sponsor of the Democratic Party in a mobile death clinic within proximity of the Convention, and a convention located behind six metre fences to keep violent left-wing protesters from interrupting speeches promoting abortion (as healthcare) and socialist ideology, one could be forgiven for suggesting that the DNC was really putting the Lord God to the test. That 25 souls lost their lives through chemical abortion during the DNC conducted in a Planned Parenthood mobile abortion van is an affront to God.

CC might have well concluded with "We ask all of this, trusting the generic god of warm hugs and safe spaces."

Some might say you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Was Cupich using honey or watered down religion? Were those pro-life Democrats expecting more of a defence of innocent life from Cardinal Cupich, and disappointed when CC didn't deliver, not aware their expectations were not likely to be met given that same clergyman's stifling of pro-life activities when he was Bishop of Spokane?

Rating of Cardinal Cupich's prayer: C+

See also:

• https://catholicherald.co.uk/cardinal-cupichs-opening-prayer-for-democratic-national-convention-fails-to-address-the-obvious/
• https://www.ncregister.com/cna/dnc-2024-cardinal-cupich-invocation
• https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/leading-prayers-for-culture-death/

Let us not forget that a prayer made in the Name of Jesus is perfected by the Holy Spirit to serve the will of God. The prayers of the Mass are wed to Christ, the Word of God. Thus, we have Jesus, the perfect model of prayer, forming us in authentic prayer and forming in us authentic prayer. Our individual prayers, arising from hearts and minds that may be scented with egoism, must rely on the Holy Ghost to purify our intentions, i.e., the Spirit of the Father and the Son, Who makes our prayers acceptable to God. God's will - not my will - be done.