Never Underestimate the Power of Prayer

An earlier version of this Worth Revisiting post was first published 21 December 2015. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.

The Anti-Prayer Warrior

The Dalai Lama, anti-prayer warrior

            Recently I have been pondering an old saying: "Never underestimate the power of prayer".  I had just been reading about the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan religious leader who has been (interestingly enough) urging people not to pray for France or for the victims of the recent Islamist terror attacks in Paris (a theme that has been echoed, much less gracefully, by some secular sources after the similarly motivated mass slaughter in San Bernadino, California).
     Bemused by the apparent incongruity of a renowned religious leader discouraging prayer, I tracked down this news article, which quotes the Dalai Lama as saying:

We cannot solve this problem only through prayers. I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place . . . We need a systematic approach to foster humanistic values, of oneness and harmony. If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody’s interest. So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments.

            To be fair, the concept of an omnipotent Creator God who really hears our prayers appears to be foreign to the tradition in which the Dalai Lama was formed; we should not expect him to embrace a Christian concept of prayer. At the same time, St. Peter tells us to “to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15), and therefore it is proper to point out several false assumptions implicit in the Buddhist leader’s remarks, which are amplified in their cruder expression on the front page of the New York Daily News (picture below).

Ora et Labora

            First of all, the detractors of prayer seem to be suggesting that praying will somehow keep us from taking whatever concrete actions might be appropriate in a given situation, as if “Pray for Paris” means “Pray, and don’t do anything else.” Perhaps they’ve never heard the expression “Pray like everything depends on God, but work like everything depends on you” (or, as St. Benedict put it, Ora et Labora, "pray and work". In any case, nobody I know is proposing prayer as a substitute for action, so this is a (not very sophisticated) straw man argument. In the case of the people at the Daily News, it seems mostly an excuse to slam politicians they don’t like for not supporting gun control laws the newspaper promotes (one might point out that these policies were already in place in both France and California, and did nothing to hinder either attack).

            There also seems to be a misunderstanding, whether genuine or disingenuous, as to what such prayers are intended to do. Nobody is suggesting that God will restore the earthly lives of the innocent people murdered in Paris or San Bernadino in response to our prayers, or is expecting a deus ex machina whereby God simply steps in and solves our problems for us, as the Dalai Lama suggests. That is not to say that we discount the possibility of miraculous intervention (see below), but our prayers in response to human tragedies, for the most part, address things that are beyond the reach of any laws or “systematic approaches” we can enact in this world: prayers for the souls of the dead, and prayers that God bring healing and peace to the hearts of those among the living who are suffering from the tragedy (and in the case of suffering caused by evil-minded people, we pray for the conversion of the perpetrators hearts). Beyond that, we ask for the gift of God’s Grace, his divine assistance to give us the wisdom to know what we ourselves should do . . . and the strength and courage to do it. If the conclusion of that prayerful deliberation is that, for example, the application of armed force is advisable, we are happy to pray for the salvation in the next world of those on whom we are waging war in this one (we Christians are a Both/And People).

            Not that any of those things are likely to deter those pushing the “For God’s Sake, Don’t Pray!” theme, because their real (but generally unspoken) argument is that prayer is futile, that it can accomplish nothing, except maybe to give the people offering the prayers the excuse that they have done their part and can leave the real work to others. This assumption most of all we should not allow to go unchallenged; we should not underestimate the efficacy of personal witness to the power of prayer, particularly when we have seen for ourselves that prayer can have powerful, and, yes,  on occasion even miraculous results.  I had a powerful reminder of this truth with the last couple of days. 

The Power of Prayer

     Here's how it happened. When I first came across the Dalai Lama's anti-prayer pronouncement I was considering how I might respond.  As I was pondering I stepped out into the hallway and ran into a colleague who started talking to me about another staff member who was being treated for cancer. Our co-worker's situation reminded him of a close family member of his who had also been suffering from late stage cancer, and who had been given less than two weeks to live. He described how he, as he put it, prayed for his relative, and with her, and over her as she slept. His suffering kinswoman was still alive after two weeks; shortly after that she was cancer-free, and she is still alive and healthy today, more than a dozen years after the doctors told her she had barely enough time to get her will notarized and say good-bye. How interesting that this man, who had no idea what I had just been reading, and with whom I had never before discussed religion or prayer at all, should choose just that moment to share his personal testimony to the miraculous power of prayer.  I suppose it could have been merely a coincidence, but if so, what a coincidence!
            Another example from my personal experience is Benedicta McCarthy, a young woman with whom, and with whose family, I was acquainted some years ago. 

Benedicta McCarthy at St. Theresa Benedicta's canonization mass

Benedicta had swallowed an entire bottle of Tylenol when she was a toddler, overwhelming and destroying her tiny liver.  Her father, a Byzantine Rite Catholic priest, organized a prayer campaign for her as she lay in the hospital.  Amazingly, the doctors who had observed a hopelessly damaged liver in the morning found a perfectly sound and healthy organ that same evening.  The Vatican's Congregation for Saints ruled Benedicta's inexplicable (to non-believers) recovery as a miracle attributed to St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, for whose intercession Fr. McCarthy and his family and friends had been praying. This miracle was cited at the Saint's canonization in 1999.

     If we want an example more relevant to the threat of jihadists, we can look to the unlikely victories of Christian armies fortified by prayer over powerful Muslim aggressors at Lepanto in 1571 or Vienna in 1683. Let the Dalai Lama and the Daily News take note: Don Juan of Austria and Jan Sobieski did not stay home, secure in the expectation that God would smite the foe in their absence. Rather, they went forth to battle knowing that the Lord would answer their prayers only if they did their own part as well.

            Prayer works: we have seen it happen. Really, aren’t the people putting their faith in fantasies those who are relying on purely human “systematic approaches” and laws to do what such things have never done, that is, perfect human nature? So by all means, let’s pray. Let’s pray for Paris, pray for San Bernadino, say prayers for the healing of the people suffering from the ugly crimes committed there, and for the conversion of those who seek to commit such crimes. Finally, let us pray for all of us, and all humanity, that we may be willing to turn to our Lord and let our actions be informed by his grace and guided by his will.

St. Augustine, St. Monica & St. Ambrose: A Dynamic Trio

St. Ambrose, St. Monica, & St. Augustine

     Today it seems fitting to talk about not one Saint, but a trio. I'll begin with the first two: St. Augustine [ here] whose feast is today, and St. Monica [here], whose feast was yesterday.  St. Augustine, of course, is one of the greatest theologians, a bishop, Doctor of the Church, and subject of one of the best-known conversion stories in the history of Christianity. The story of St. Monica is also well-known, how she “stormed Heaven” with her fervent prayer over many years on behalf of her wayward son in his less-than-saintly days, and how after he had at last returned to Christ and his Church she died in great contentment.

    St. Monica has long been an inspiration to parents worried about the spiritual welfare of their offspring. And she is a powerful intercessor on their behalf.  We need to bear in mind, however, that as essential as her prayers were, they were not enough.  She softened Augustine’s heart, and prepared the ground to receive the seeds of his conversion, but she herself was not able to plant those seeds: she could not convince her son to change his life.

     Although Augustine was unwilling to be swayed by his mother’s entreaties, it seems that her prayers brought someone into his life to whom he was willing to listen: St. Ambrose [here], our third Saint.  St. Monica’s efforts in the realm of the spirit combined with Ambrose’s eloquence and intellectual brilliance were too much for Augustine’s will to resist.  Together they brought him back to communion with the Body of Christ.

     It often perplexes and saddens those of us who are parents that however hard we try, sometimes our children simply can’t, or won’t, hear what we have to say.  What’s even more maddening, they often treat those same things as the height of wisdom when they encounter them on the lips of a stranger.  It’s a hard reality.  That’s why when we are Storming Heaven for the sake of our children, whatever else we pray for, we would do well to ask the Lord to send a St. Ambrose.

Prisoners Of Our Own Device

Earlier this week we made our first beach visit of the season. It was beautiful but, alas, too chilly to go in the water. It brought to mind this Worth Revisiting post, which was first published not at the beginning but at the end of summer two years ago, on September 21st, 2014, as part of my Sunday Snippets post.  

To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.  

September beach-wear in Maine

I'd like to start with a little jaunt we made last weekend, a late-summer (nearly fall) visit to the beach.  The high temperatures for the day didn’t get above the mid 60’s, so we wore jackets and kept our shoes on, and just walked and enjoyed the views (no selfies of my feet in the surf this time).  Most other beach-goers were dressed for the weather as we were, but a few defiant souls were there in swimsuits, either stretched out on the beach or even, in the case of the most intrepid, wading a little into the water.  One of my sons remarked that there were two factions at the beach that day: those who were in denial and those who were not.

     Among the deniers there was one young girl dressed in a swimsuit, maybe twelve years old, who was venturing into the surf . . . holding a smart phone in her hand.  It was a most incongruous image.  Twenty minutes later I saw her again, a little further down the beach, still clutching her little electronic gadget.  I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised: I’ve seen the videos of people walking into walls, fountains, etc., in public places with their eyes glued to little screens, I’ve seen with my own eyes my fellow motorists going down the highway at 70 miles per hour with their eyes down and their thumbs bouncing off their devices, and I’ve heard about the often fatal accidents caused by such people. 
     I couldn't help but think of that poor techno-crazed girl when I read this article [here] in Catholic World Report about "Casualities of the Device Age".  The author, Thomas Doran, explains that, while the little gadgets have many useful aspects, the widespread addiction to them contributes "to a decline in the ability to reason, contemplation, and self-discipline."  Having taught high school students for twenty-eight years, I can testify to the truth of Doran's observations.  I would also add that enslavement to these little electronic tyrants, because they try to fill the void in our heart that only God can fill (as do all addictions), draws us away from the Lord.  A few months ago I posted a meditation (see the selfie-of-feet link above) in which I discussed the vastness of the sea as an image of God's infinite love. How very sad that the girl at the beach  couldn't leave behind the instrument of her spiritual servitude even for the infinite embrace of the ocean.  What a sobering image of our modern predicament.

Daytime Prayer Sanctifies Our Labors (LOH 9)

The Worth Revisiting post below (first published two years ago on the blog Principium et Finis) is the ninth in a series on the Liturgy of the Hours as a devotion for lay people (click for parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight) To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.  

    It is fitting, in a way, that this post on Daytime prayer comes last in the series, because Daytime Prayer (actually the three separate hours of Midmorning Prayer, Terce, Midday Prayer, Sext, and Midafternoon Prayer, None) is the most overlooked part of the Divine Office.  Without it, however, we do not enjoy the fullest experience of the daily Liturgy.

     Daytime prayer has traditionally contained three separate prayer hours, whose names come from the old Roman mode of designating time by counting the hours after dawn: Terce at the third hour (tertius is “third” in Latin), approximately 9:00 A.M., Sext at Noon, the sixth hour (in Latin sextus), and None from the Latin nonus, ninth, at that hour of the day (around 3:00 p.m.).   These hours are less prominent than the others in the overall scheme of the Liturgy, and so are considerably shorter.  Each contains  only three relatively short psalm readings (with their antiphons), a brief scripture reading (no more than one or two verses) and a closing prayer.

Daily Life is busy; New York's Little Italy c. 1900

   Their brevity is appropriate to the period of the day, when most of us are the busiest with our worldly occupations, and many people would find it impossible to fit in longer prayers.  They are also designed to be flexible: only one of these three prayer hours changes psalms according to the four week cycle each day and, except for some feast days, we can choose at which of the three hours we want to pray these psalms.  The benefit of this arrangement is that we won't miss any of the psalms if we pray even one of these three hours on a given day.  If we also pray one or both of the other two hours we use fixed psalms (called the Complementary Psalmody) that are the same every day.  Even the busiest layperson can normally find time to pray at least one of these brief hours during the day, and many of those under obligation to pray the Liturgy of the Hours are not required to pray all three. We should take the ease and flexibility of Daytime Prayer as an indication, not of its insignificance, but of how important it is, since the Church is making it so convenient to observe at least part of the Divine Office in the midst of our working day.
   And that is a great part of the value of these prayer hours.  It is possible to pray all the other hours before work in the morning and after we are finished in the evening, leaving the greater part of our day, the part that most occupies us mentally and physically, untouched by our sacred project of “sanctifying time”.  The very fact of interrupting the normal flow of things, even briefly, to turn our thoughts to God, and to pray with the sacred scriptures, draws together our fuller prayers in the morning and the evening to cover the whole day.

     We also find an emphasis in the psalms and prayers of Daytime Prayer that helps us to put whatever we do throughout the day into an “eternal” perspective.  We see many images of work, harvest, and, at None, the home life to which we are about to return.  Many of the psalms also emphasize God’s grace, mercy, and involvement in our lives.  For instance, the Complementary Psalmody for Midday Prayer includes Psalm 125, which begins:

            Those who put their trust in the Lord

            Are like Mount Zion, that cannot be shaken,

            That stands forever. . .   

The concluding prayer often directs our attention to the divine perspective on that particular part of our working day.  At the end of Terce on Monday of Week I, for instance, we are directed toward our labors to come:

            God our Father,

            work is your gift to us,

            a call to reach new heights

            by using our talents for the good of all.

            Guide us as we work and teach us to live

            in the spirit that has made us your sons and daughters,

            in the love that has made us brothers and sisters.

Then at Sext, when we are in the midst of our labors:

            Father,

            Yours is the harvest

            and Yours is the vineyard:

            You assign the task

            and pay a wage that is just.

            help us to meet this day’s responsibilities,

            and let nothing separate us from your love.

Finally, None’s  conclusion connects our mid-afternoon prayer to the prayer we see see Peter and the Apostles offering (see Acts 3:1) at the same time of day:

            Lord,

            You call us to worship You

            At the hour when the apostles went to pray in the temple . . .

As the last prayer on Monday connects the hour of the day with that hour in Salvation History, so the prayers for Friday of Week I give us an almost hourly recapitulation of the events of Good Friday.  The pray for Midmorning begins:

            Lord Jesus Christ,

            at this hour you led out

            to die on the cross

            for the salvation of the world . . .  

Then at Midday Prayer:

            Lord Jesus Christ,

            At noon, when darkness covered all the earth,

            You mounted the wood of the cross . . .

And finally, the prayer at Midafternoon begins:

            Lord Jesus Christ,

            You brought the repentant thief

            From the suffering of the cross

            To the joy of your kingdom . . .

     No discussion of Daytime prayer would be complete for me if I didn’t mention two of my favorite psalms, 127 and 128, which we find in Midafternoon Complementary Psalmody.  Both point to the home to which we are about to return.  On a deeper level they help us look at the work day that is nearing completion in the context of God’s abundance and mercy, and remind us that He rewards those who rely upon Him.  Psalm 127  begins with an image of a house under construction to represent our need for God’s help: “If the Lord does not build the house/In vain do its builders labor”; the last half of the psalm depicts God’s abundant blessings, as represented by our children:

            Truly sons are a gift from the Lord,

            A blessing, the fruit of the womb.

            Indeed the sons of youth

            Are like arrows in the hand of a warrior.

The Wife a Fruitful Vine: "A Hearty Welcome", Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Psalm 128, the final Psalm of Daytime Prayer, beautifully encapsulates the whole day of work by pointing to its end, in which we see the whole chain of love and abundance.  Here, our “yes” to God’s love for us finds fruitfulness in our work under His care, reflected in the fruitfulness of our wife, who is compared to a flourishing vine. That abundance is in turn passed on to our children and to our children’s children.  I can think of no better closing for this essay than to reproduce Psalm 128 in full:

O blessed are those who fear the Lord

and walk in his ways!

By the labor of your hands you shall eat.

You will be happy and prosper;

the wife like a fruitful vine

in the heart of your house;

Your children like shoots of the olive,

around the your table.

Indeed thus shall be blessed

the man who fears the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion

all the days of your life!

May you see your children's children

in a happy Jerusalem!

On Israel, peace!     

Our Daily Orientation: Lauds (LOH 6)

The Worth Revisiting post below (first published two years ago on the blog Principium et Finis) is the sixth in a series on the Liturgy of the Hours as a devotion for lay people (click for parts one, two, three, four, and five). To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com. 

In my latest discussion on the Liturgy of the Hours we take a look at Morning Prayer, also known as Lauds.  One may pray the Office of Readings first, which traditionally has been prayed in the middle of the night, but Lauds is specifically designed to start us on our daily journey.

The Structure of the Office

"The Birth of St. John the Baptist" by Giuliano Bugiardini

    First, a few words on the structure of this office.   If it’s the first office of the day we start with the Invitatory; otherwise, as in the other offices, we start with “Lord open my lips/and my mouth will proclaim your praise” followed by a “Glory be . . . “.   This is followed by the psalmody where. Lauds is unlike the Office of Readings, in which there are three psalm readings, because here we find two psalms with an Old Testament canticle of comparable length in between.  All three are followed the “Glory Be”, and are bracketed by antiphons.  The particular reading and antiphons follow a four-week cycle, and there may also be other antiphons for particular times, such as Holy Week or Easter.

     Next comes a brief scripture reading, normally only a couple of verses.  These vary more widely by the season (there are different readings for Advent, Christmas Season, Lent, Easter) and, often by particular Holy Days.  This is followed by a three-part responsory, which also varies according to the liturgical calendar.  For Today, Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter, the responsory is:

            

The Lord is risen from the tomb, alleluia, alleluia

                - The Lord is risen from the tomb, alleluia, alleluia

He hung upon the cross for us

                -  alleluia, alleluia

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

                - The Lord is risen from the tomb, alleluia, alleluia

     The Canticle of Zechariah (called the Benedictus from it's first word in Latin) always follows the responsory.  This Gospel Canticle is the song of praise proclaimed by Zechariah after his voice has been returned to him at the naming of his son, John the Baptist. It is also preceded and followed by antiphons determined by the liturgical calendar.

     The office ends with a series of intercessions and a closing prayer which, yet again, accord with the season or Holy Day.

Our Daily Orientation

     I have always appreciated the way in which this office “orients” me at the beginning of the day.  Any morning prayer or offering should be expected to direct our attention to our relationship with our creator, of course, and Lauds certainly does that.  In addition to that, the canticles are passages that we might not ordinarily see: the Canticle of Hannah, for instance, (1 Samuel 2:1-10), a precursor to Mary’s Magnificat; a canticle from the prophet Habakkuk, chapter 3, that includes the evocative line “decay invades my bones”; or the triumphant song chanted by the Hebrews after the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 15:1):

            I will sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously triumphant,

            Horse and chariot he has cast into the sea . . . .

This last is reputed to be one of the oldest (at least in its present form) passages in the Bible.

     But the office of Morning Prayer does even more.  It does not just orient us as individuals to God: It orients us to the whole scope of Salvation history.  For instance, every Friday the penitential Psalm 51 opens the office:

            Have mercy on me God, in your kindness.

            In your compassion blot out my offense.

            O wash me more and more from my guilt

            And cleanse me from my sin.

This prayer and others in the Office remind us of the fact that on Friday we focus in a special way on Christ’s suffering for our salvation. When we faithfully pray the Divine Office we always start our day knowing how that day fits in the Big Picture, throughout the week and throughout the liturgical year.
     We also start our day with a specific celebration of the liturgical season, or a particular solemnity or saint’s day, which has a much greater impact than if we should happen to remember it (or not) at some point during the course of the day.  The overall effect is that it brings us out of ourselves and unites us in prayer with the entire Church, which is saying the same prayer throughout the world, and which lives the same faith throughout time.  What better way to greet the new day?

Franz Joseph Haydn, Te Deum

   The ancient song of praise Te Deum Laudamus (“We Praise You, God”) is among the oldest Christian Hymns.  It has sometimes been attributed to Saints Ambrose and Augustine, although scholars now posit their contemporary Nicetas of Remesiana as its author.  For many centuries the Church has celebrated joyful occasions with the Te Deum, and it has traditionally been sung as part of the Divine Office on Holy Days and Sundays outside of Lent.  In the current Liturgy of the Hours it appears in the Office of Readings on such occasions.

    A very large number of musical settings have been composed for the Te Deum over the centuries, from simple chants to extravagant treatments involving a full orchestra.  The clip below is of a performance of the irrepressible Joseph Haydn’s composition.  

    Have a Blessed Easter - The Lord is risen, alleluiah!  

Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur. Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi caeli et universae Potestates; Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra majestatis gloriae tuae. Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus, Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus, Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus. Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia, Patrem immensae majestatis: Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium; Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum. Tu Rex gloriae, Christe. Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius. Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum. Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum. Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris. Judex crederis esse venturus.	You O God, we praise: You, Lord, we acknowledge to be. You are the eternal Father. All the earth venerates you.To you all Angels; to you the heavens and all the Powers. To you Cherubim and Seraphim with unending voice proclaim: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. Full are heaven and earth with the majesty of your glory. You the glorious chorus of Apostles (praise), You the praiseworthy number of the Prophets (praise), You the white-clothed army of Martyrs praise. You throughout all the world are acknowledged by the holy Church, Father of immense Majesty: Who is to be worshiped, your true and only Son; Also the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. You are the King of Glory, O Christ. You are the everlasting Son of the Father. When you took upon yourself to deliver man, you did not abhor the Virgin’s womb. You, by overcoming the sting of death, opened to all believers the Kingdom of Heaven. You sit at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father. Our Judge we believe that you will come to be.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni: quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.	To you therefore we ask you, help your servants: whom you have redeemed with your precious blood.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari. [added later, adapted from Psalm verses] Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae. Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum. Per singulos dies benedicimus te; Et laudamus Nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi. Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire. Miserere nostri Domine, miserere nostri. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.	In eternity with your saints make them in glory to be numbered. [added later, adapted from Psalm verses] Save your people, Lord, and bless your heritage. And rule them, and lift them up for ever. Every day we bless you; And we worship your Name forever, and forever for all ages. Vouchsafe, O Lord, this day without sin to keep us. Have mercy upon us, our Lord, have mercy upon us. Let your mercy be upon us, O Lord,  since we have trusted in you.
In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.	In you, O Lord, I have trusted: may I not be confounded forever