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If we believe in God, we have to believe that God is more powerful than we.
-Rev. John Phalen
Prayer Leads to Action
By Rev. John Phalen, CSC, PresidentHoly Cross Family Ministries
“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Mt 25:40)
As we return to “Ordinary Time” in the Church’s liturgical calendar, it is important to recognize that the above quote is a good summary for “ordinary” Christian living. Matthew, Chapter 25, says that we will be judged according to this: not according to how much or how hard we’ve prayed, but according to what we have done to alleviate the sufferings of others.
But it’s the family that prays together that stays together, as we know from the great promoter of Mary’s Rosary in the family context, Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton, CSC. And Jesus himself often went off by himself or with his closest friends to pray. This enabled him to be so compassionate and caring and to bring healing, acceptance and forgiveness into the lives of the “least” of people.
That is the connection which is so important for us: the one between prayer, especially Rosary prayer, and action on behalf of those in special need. It is the time we dedicate to real prayer, contemplative prayer like the Rosary, which helps us see clearly the extent of God’s gracious love for us, which results in the energy and vision needed to bring us to real service of those in need. We will be judged according to the action, but there will be no action on behalf of others if we do not learn to pray always.
Another way to put this reality is to say that our prayer life gives us the opportunity to bask in God’s love. Then during our daily lives we will radiate that same love out towards others in ways that matter. We will be compassionately present to them; we will make their burdens our own; we will give them a sense that they are not alone and abandoned.
One of our film series deals with this reality. It is called the “Prayer in Action” series. In it we depict programmatic responses to the needs of the Appalachian poor, the homeless in Philadelphia, persons struggling with serious disabilities in a Larsch community in Tacoma Washington, former prisoners who are addicts in Albany, and families who are poor and struggling in Peru. We certainly need to pray for all these and others. And we certainly need to act on their behalf to the extent that we can.
The beautiful thing is when you realize that those helped are often motivated to become the prayerful apostles who will pray for us and act on our behalf. As I go to the Philippines and East Africa in these January and February months, I see this phenomenon everywhere. People of faith from very different circumstances of life are praying and staying together, because their prayer leads to action. That is the ordinary reality for an extraordinary Church.