“Does Prayer Work?”

Unanswered prayer is something that everyone struggles with at times, but it may not be that mysterious after all. Particularly with hindsight, when I consider life backwards I am rather relieved that He didn’t answer some prayers and even more relieved that He didn’t answer prayers said for me by others or I may have been peppered with lightning bolts and drenched in lashings of Greek Fire long ago! Fortunately He is irritatingly patient with sinners. 

Our Prayer life goes hand in hand with our evolving or developing relationship with God. From follower to disciple to servant to friend and then to son (or daughter) and at each point there is a different attitude to prayer, a different level of intimacy with God and often a quite different result as our hearts are brought into closer harmony with His. 

Sadly, many stop praying when they discover that God is not Santa Claus and not there to cater to our whims or often selfish demands. He has so much more to offer than mere trifles. Perseverance is certainly a part of the training in prayer and some things can take months or years of prayer but listening is also crucial, asking the right questions in order to refine your prayer until it becomes in line with His desires. As C.S. Lewis noted ‘prayer does not change Him, it changes me.’ 

Perhaps this underlines too the usefulness of seeking the intercession of the saints, as when we pray the Rosary for example, as we offer our prayer through Mary who is uniquely related to God as daughter, mother and spouse, she can ‘correct the grammar’ and perfect the prayer as she would be aware of what is needed more precisely than we would. 

With time, practice and an open heart, prayer will become a joy, a dynamic two-way street and as He changes our hearts more and more, we will be more attuned to know the right things to pray for and answered prayer will become as normal as breathing. 

We have a tradition in our prayer group where at the end of the year, we have a prayer of thanksgiving for the year that passed and petitions for the next, which we record and review. There are very few unanswered or delayed, nowadays.

St. Joseph in Sicily ... Providence in action

On March 19th, we celebrated the Solemnity of the great St Joseph. Many offered him a Novena or even a Thirty Day Prayer, entrusting him with their most urgent intentions. One of my dear sisters tells this story that illustrates the kindness of this saint, his humor and his effectiveness.

"I was in a house belonging to the community of the Beatitudes, in Pettineo, Sicily. This house was an old Franciscan convent, very cold and very humid. At that time, there were about 30 of us in the House and we lived in great and very severe poverty. There were neither small nor larger sources of income. We often had many guests who came to pray with us and who stayed for a meal.

I remember that one day, we had nothing to eat. Many of us were young and it was not easy for everyone to eat their fill. Our superiors always told us that Saint Joseph is the father of Providence, and they would tell us a lot of stories about people who had received his help. So we, the younger crowd, still full of zeal, said, "Let's make a shopping list with everything we need, and also add some things we'd like to have", and that's what we did. So in that list, there are all sorts of things and there was something for everyone... even Nutella and so many other things that were not really useful. Trusting St Joseph blindly, we put that list behind his image, in the prayer corner in the kitchen. 

Every day, we prayed to St. Joseph. We were completely taken by surprise when someone suddenly knocked at the door and left lots of bags! We couldn't believe our eyes! We put all the bags on the big kitchen table. We dared not open them... and then someone exclaimed: "Take the shopping list!" It felt like a treasure hunt: one sister read the products on the list and the others looked inside the bags to see if they were in there. We were amazed, it was like a game of tombola! Nothing was missing! Well ... almost nothing!

I remember Piero's face, he just fell silent in sadness when the sister finished reading the list. Only one thing was missing, peppers! "No, that's not possible! Saint Joseph, should have remembered my peppers! No, that isn't fair!" While he expressed his criticism because there were no peppers, suddenly a familiar voice was heard on the stairs: it was Madame Inès, God rest her soul...

Ines was an elderly lady, a widow who lived alone in Pettineo and who often came to see us. Inés raised her voice on the staircase, she was annoyed by something. In the meantime, Piero was grumbling against St. Joseph in the kitchen, while Ines was expressing her irritation.

- 'What's wrong, Ines? Why are you angry?'

- 'Well nothing! I brought you some peppers in oil, and the jar opened in my bag!'

Poor thing! She did not immediately understand why her purse stained with oil turned our home into a party!

No, St. Joseph had forgotten absolutely nothing! He just had his own plan: he wanted someone else to become an instrument of God's Providence, and that was Ines. He wanted us to no longer be doubters, he wanted us to be believers!"

St. Joseph did not have an easy time in his life! The torment of seeing Mary with child, the rejection of the people of Bethlehem, the extreme poverty of the stable where Jesus was born, the flight to Egypt by night and the long stay as a political refugee there, without any regular work nor any income, losing Jesus at the age of 12 with those three days of terrible anguish... In short, this man was weathered by ordeals and humiliations, how could he not understand our troubles of today? As Mary said on March 2nd, "Near Him (Jesus), everything is easier. Suffering next to Him is easier because there is faith. Faith helps when you are in pain, and suffering without faith leads to despair. Suffering that is experienced and offered to God raises us up."

(from Children of Medjugorje Newsletter)