The Power of Prayer for Those We Love

For most of my life I didn’t understand the point of prayer.  God knows the future, I can’t change His will – why bother praying?  In Making Time for Prayer I talked a little about why prayer matters for us as individuals, but just as important is why our prayer matters for those we love.  But if everyone has free will, and we can’t change God’s will, what exactly can our prayer do for them?

God has given prayer immense power because through it we can release graces that He has been waiting to bestow on us and on others.  Does He need our intercession to dispense His grace?  Of course not.  But He loves us and wants us to participate in the work begun by His Son.  So God has ordained that for certain graces to be released they must be called down by you and me in prayer!  This is why St. Paul wrote, “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men” (1 Tim 2:1).

I had a teacher explain it in this memorable way: if a parent wants to bake cookies, he doesn’t need his three-year-old’s help.  In fact, letting little Johnny help will result in the process taking longer, creating more of a mess, and the cookies themselves coming out not quite as perfectly.  But the father loves his child, and so it’s his pleasure to make Johnny happy by letting him help.  It lets Johnny know his dad loves him, that he’s important.  It’s an analogy that fits well with prayer because our Father doesn’t need our prayers to rain down any of His blessings.  But He loves us, and has given us the dignity of knowing that what we do matters, for ourselves and for others.  So He chooses to let us help through prayer (needless to say this holds true for many other actions related to salvation).

Yet the analogy eventually breaks down because whether or not the cookies get baked doesn’t matter, but whether or not we pray is of the greatest importance.  If our prayers have an effect, the natural corollary is that a failure to pray also has an effect (or lack of an effect).  If God has reserved certain blessings to be released only when we pray, then that means He won’t release them unless we pray.  Sometimes I honestly don’t feel like praying, but this thought always drives me to my knees.  My prayers matter, they are needed.  And so are yours, for your family, friends and all others you pray for!

It can be tempting to view prayer as an obligation or a burden, but in truth it’s an immense privilege.  Through prayer, God has given us the great gift (and, admittedly, responsibility) of being able to play a part in the salvation of others.  How amazing is that?  You and I get to affect other people’s eternities!

I can’t wait for the day when all will be revealed in Heaven and we (God willing we’re there!) will know the many people whose prayers and actions brought us closer to the Lord.  And we likewise will be able to see the incredible effects our prayers and good deeds had on others, even on those we never met.  Oh what rejoicing there will be as we thank the Lord for all the people who have made a difference for us, and together spend eternity glorifying Him!

Special thanks to Dave Turri for witnessing to this truth in such a powerful way that (way-back-when) it made me rethink my prayer life

Getting to Know Your Guardian Angel

Today, October 2nd, the Church celebrates the feast of guardian angels. Some think of angels as make believe, or only for children, but Scripture makes it clear they are real. There are many occasions where angels do God’s bidding: for instance, Gabriel at the Annunciation, or Raphael with Tobit, or Michael in the book of Revelation, or angels ministering to Jesus at Gethsemane. There are also many times in the Old Testament where unnamed angels do God’s work (especially in Genesis and Exodus).

Perhaps more importantly for us, though, we have guardian angels. Jesus told His disciples, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven” (Mt 18:10). Though in this context Jesus is talking about children, we all have guardian angels. The Church has believed this from the beginning (see Acts 12:15) and continues to teach it today. In fact, back in the 50s Pope Pius XII reminded us, “Each one of us, even the poorest of the poor, has angels watching over him. The angels are glorious, pure and splendid, but they have been given to us as companions along the way of life. They have the task of watching over you all, so that you do not stray away from Christ, your Lord.”

God has given us guardian angels to help us get to Heaven, to Him! Opus Angelorum tells us that our guardian angels are charged with the task to provide each one of us with:
1) Assistance in the Adoration of God
2) Assistance in the Contemplation of the Word of God
3) Assistance in the Imitation of the Crucified Savior
4) Assistance in the Mission and Office in the Church

God endowed angels with intellect superior to man. Further, our guardian angels have seen God(!!) and have been serving Him faithfully from the beginning! What more could we want in a guardian angel?

Talk to your guardian angel. Get to know him/her (angels are pure spirit, and so don’t have gender, but it’s generally helpful to think in terms of him or her, especially if we want to build a relationship). Ask for help. God gave you a guardian angel for your benefit! But just like with God, the more you cooperate with your angel the more he can do for you. So today, take a little time to thank your guardian angel for all he’s done and to get to know him a little better!

A Deeper Understanding of the Mass

Since the changes to the texts of the Mass are rapidly approaching (I can’t believe Advent only about 2 months away!) now seems like an ideal time to look a little more closely at the Mass itself.

The Form
The Mass has two main parts: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  Why these two parts?  Because the Church follows the example Jesus gave her at Emmaus.  You probably remember the story of Jesus appearing two disciples right after His resurrection, though they don’t recognize Him.  Confused about all that has happened, Jesus patiently explains it to them.

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained Him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So He went in to stay with them. When He was at table with them, He took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished out of their sight (Luke 24:27-31)

In the Mass, we follow the pattern Jesus set here.  We begin with the Scriptures, then have the Word of God explained further for us in a homily (which finishes the Liturgy of the Word), and then we celebrate the breaking of the bread, that is, the Eucharist.

This is why our Mass is so amazingly similar to the Mass of the early Christians – because we’re just following Jesus’ example.  Descriptions of the Mass from St. Justin Martyr in the 2nd century, from St. Hippolytus in the 3rd century and from St. Cyril in 4th century are so close in form to our Mass that I can’t recommend enough checking it out for yourselves (Mike Aquilina’s The Mass of the Early Christians is great, or you could also go straight to the sources and read the saints’ primary texts).  It will give you goosebumps!

It’s incredible to think that for nearly 2,000 years the Mass has had a rough form of: confession/contrition for sins, alternating verses between the congregation and the celebrant (i.e., the Psalms in our Mass), the reading of Scripture, a homily, an offering/donation we make to the Church, prayer intentions, a sign of peace, the consecration and finally the distribution of the Eucharist.  And so each time we go to Mass we’re sharing in a Tradition that is truly ancient!

The Eucharist
The Mass is the “source and summit of Christian life” (according to the Second Vatican Council) because it is the highest form of worship.  It is where the Church, and we as individuals, give the greatest glory to God as we remember and make present Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice.  And it’s also where we are most fully united with Him since the Eucharist makes possible a participation in His very divinity!

St. Paul was very careful to ensure the words of institution, which Jesus established at the Last Supper, would be passed down. He wrote:

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:23-25)

Jesus’ words are very explicit – not only here, but also in John 6 in His famous Bread of Life discourse.  Jesus is telling us that we are to eat His Body and drink His Blood.  Not symbolically, not figuratively, but literally. “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day’” (Jn 6:53-54).  (For more on this check out my post Why the Real Presence Matters)

This literally understanding has been the teaching of the Church from the very beginning.  The early Church Fathers are unanimous in their belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Less than 100 years after the death of Jesus, St. Ignatius of Antioch explains, “Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.”

Likewise, St. Justin Martyr just a little over 100 years after Christ’s death wrote, “For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.”

The Eucharist is the heart of the Mass.  If we don’t properly understand it, if we can’t explain it to others, then we’re shortchanging ourselves and our relationship with Jesus.  The Eucharist is the greatest expression of Christ’s love (and I say this because it’s the flipside of His sacrifice on the Cross – the two are so intimately connected they’re like the two sides of one coin) and we must always be striving towards a deeper understanding of this love so that we may experience it more fully, and then return it more fully.

Further Study
Since changes are coming, now is the perfect time to learn more about the source and summit of our lives as Christians: the Mass!  The small amount of time it takes to read a book on the subject will pay dividends not only in this life as you attend Mass, but for all eternity as well.  Some of my favorites include:

For brief introductions to the Mass: The How-To Book of the Mass and The Mass

For more on the Eucharist: The Lamb’s Supper, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, Worthy is the Lamb: Biblical Roots of the Eucharist

May the Lord bring us all to deeper understanding of His great gift: the Eucharist.  And may that same Eucharist bring us all to everlasting life, where the veil around His presence will fall and we will finally see our Lord face to face.

Celebrating the Triumph of the Cross

Today the Church celebrates the Triumph or Exaltation of the Cross.  The Cross might seem like a strange thing to be focusing on, not only for our non-Catholic brethren but especially for non-Christians.  Who wants to glorify an instrument of torture?  Why do Catholics keep Christ on the Cross when instead the focus could be on the Resurrection?  Catholics are in good company – we glorify the Cross, and especially the Crucifix (where Jesus is on the Cross), as St. Paul did.  He writes, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles…For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:23, 25).

Crucifixion by Diego Velazquez

We venerate the Cross because the moment in which the Word Made Flesh seemed the weakest would become the moment when He was strongest.  Because though on the Cross it seemed like evil would triumph, the Cross was instead lifted up for the salvation of mankind.  But above all, we celebrate the Triumph of the Cross because it is the surest proof of God’s love for us.

As Fulton Sheen wrote, “Every other person who ever came into this world came into it to live.  [Jesus] came into it to die.”  God became man to die on the Cross, so that man might be redeemed and brought back into His fold.  Love is shown most in sacrifice, and nowhere was Christ’s sacrifice for us greater than on the Cross we exalt today.  Jesus loved us most on the Cross, so how can we not love Him most on the Cross?

I think it’s also important to remember the Cross because we all have of our crosses to bear.  Jesus is risen from the dead, but the world is still filled with pain and suffering, with trials and tests.  Focusing on the example set by Jesus carrying His Cross can help us to carry our own.  Since He carried His Cross for us, we can surely carry our cross (which is so much lighter!) for Him.  Today also serves as a reminder that we do not carry our crosses alone.  Jesus both carried His Cross for us then and continues to help us carry our crosses now.

We should spend some time every day meditating on the Cross, but especially today!!  We adore You oh Christ and we praise You, because by Your holy Cross You have redeemed the world.