How to Pray to the End the Plague

Many people think God is like Santa Claus, that even if we're on the naughty list, we still owed gifts.  That image of God is idolatrous.

In this essay, I'd like to offer some Biblical reflections on praying aright, an art for which the Body of Christ seems to be experiencing something of a famine.  So, please, open your Bible and join me on a pilgrimage to the "throne of grace" (Heb 4:16).

1.  Repentance
St James wrote, "You ask and do not recevie because you ask wrongly..." (Jas 4:3); he goes on to say, "...you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions...  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be afriend of the owrld makes himself an enemy fo God" (Jas 4:3a-4).  The apostles St Paul (2 Cor 6:17-18) and St John (1 John 2:15) make the same point.

On the other hand, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on the things that are above, not the things that are on earth" (Col 3:1-2).  The Word thus speaks of changing our minds away from worldliness and towards the heavenly life.  It is this 'changing of the mind' that exactly constitutes repentance.

In traditional Catholic praxis, "contrition" consists of compunction for sin, that is, sorrow for having offended God, and purpose of amendment, that is, a resolution to not recommit sin.  In fact, sacramental absolution can be invalidated by the penitnent who, in the confessional, refuses to not repeat his sin.

Traditional Catholic praxis also demands that one be in the state of grace in order to pray efficaciously, or at least intend to return to the state of grace as soon as possible.  St Louis de Montfort, in his The Secret of the Rosary (no. 117) has this to say, for example:

[...] say the holy Rosary with advantage one must be in a state of grace or at least be fully determined to give up sin, for all our theology teaches us that good works and prayers are dead works if they are done in a state of mortal sin. Therefore, they can neither be pleasing to God nor help us to gain eternal life. As Scripture says, "Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner" [Sirach 15:9].

Hence St James:  "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (5:16, AV), and the only righteous person is a repentant person.  After all, why should we expect God to favour us with cleansing our land of the pandemic if we refuse God the favour of being converted and reformed?

2.  Pray in the Name of Jesus
In several places, the Lord Christ invites His disciples to pray "in My Name."  To pray in Jesus' Name is to pray with His own authority such that we almost speak on His behalf.  For example, the Governor-General of Canada speaks in the name of The Queen, that is, she speaks to Parliament as if Her Majesty herself was addressing them.  When we pray in the Name of Jesus, we speak to the Father with Jesus' own authority.

In His Farewell Discourse, the Lord said "Whatever you ask in My Name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in My Name, I will do it" (Jn 14:13-14).  Again, "...I chose you and appointed you that you shoudl go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whaever you ask the Father in My Name, he may give it to you" (Jn 15:16).

Even more powerful is corporate prayer in the Name of Jesus:  "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done fo rthem by My Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am in the midst of them" (Mt 18:19-20).

It is a mistake to think that praying 'in Jesus' Name' is an added luxury or simply more beneficial than other kinds of prayer; it is, in fact, the only true prayer.  The reason is that in Jesus alone is the Father accessible at all:  "I am the Way, and the  Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me" (Jn 14:6).  Not "principally through Me" or "usually through Me" but "except through Me."  St Paul makes a similar point:  "For there is one God, and there is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5).  There are no alternative mediators.

Clearly, to pray 'in the Name of Jesus' is to boldly access the Father on Jesus' behalf.  But how do we get to the point of being able to pray not only on behalf of Jesus, but to God as Father?

3.  Pray in the Power of the Holy Spirit
Our access to God is by way of Jesus Christ such that He lends us His own voice in addressing God as "Father."  But this can only happen if we are incorporated to Christ, and that is done precisely by the indweling Holy Spirit:  "Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him" (Rom 8:9).  Thus:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons [and daughters] of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of Sonship.  When we cry, "Abba, Father!" it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:14-16).

Whereas in his Epistle to the Romans St Paul speaks of the 'Spirit of Sonship,' in his Epistle to the Galatians he speaks of the 'Spirit of Adoption':

...God sent forth his Son, born of a Woman, born under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons [and daughters].  And because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba!  Father!"  So you are no longer a slave but a son [and a daughter] (Gal 4:4-7).

It is precisely "through Him [Christ]  we both have access in one Spirit to the Father" (Eph 2:18).  It is by baptism in the Holy Spirit that we are incporporated into Christ (1 Cor 12:13) and thus are 'extensions' of Christ; our being an extension of Christ is precisely how we pray 'in the Name of Jesus,' and only when we are empowered by surrendered to the indwelling Holy Spirit can we do this fully.

By the way, I wonder:  With the Church's missionary outreach languishing and given Christians' evangelistic lethargy in growing the Body of Christ, is it possible to fully pray "in the Name of Jesus"?  Can we dare to approach the Father while intentionally shrinking the numbers of new Christians?  Could it be that God is inviting us to bring more people to baptism in the Holy Spirit so that with a stronger voice we can raise our prayer for mercy?

Back to out point:  Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can even pray 'in the Name of Jesus' by allowing the Holy Spirit to supply the words for our prayer:  "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do nto know howw to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself interceds for us with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26).  This is why, when we sing the ancient hymn to the Holy Spirit, Veni Creator Spiritus, the Church sings:  "Tu septiformis munere / digitus paternae dexterae, / tu rite promissum Patris, / sermone ditans guttura"; one English translation has it:  "Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known; / Thou, finger of God's hand we own; / Thou, promise of the Father, Thou / Who dost the tongue with power imbue."  Hence does St Paul tell us in several places to "pray at all times in the Spirit" (Eph 6:18) and he himself admits:  "I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the mind also" (1 Cor 14:15).  St Jude Thaddeus also says:  "...pray in the Holy Spirit" (Jude 1:20).

4.  Pray According to the Word
In His 'High Priestly Prayer' during the Farewell Discourse, the Lord Jesus said that "If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you" (Jn 15:7).  Our familiarity with the words of Jesus--and, by extension, the entire Word of God--thus gives us a certain familiarity with the ways of God such that we learn how to pray for those things according to the mind of God.

Unfamiliarity with the Word of God leaves us guessing at what God's will is; without a wholehearted disposition of "Thy will be done" that comes with knowing God and his ways through the Bible, our prayer loses its full potential.  Though we may not have full insight into God's will, by fixing our intention for "living in the Word," our hearts are so formed that obedience to God becomes our 'default' position; still, our knowledge of the Bible equips us with a sense of direction prayer:  "For Thy testimonies are my meditation, and Thy statues are my counsellors" (Psalm 118 [119]:24, Greek).  The Word of God, then, counsels us how and what to pray for.

It is only by storing up the Word in our hearts that we can discern God's will and pray accordingly:  "And this is the confidence which we have in Him, that if we ask anything according ot his will he hears us" (1 Jn 5:14).  St Thomas Aquinas teaches clearly that prayer does not change God's mind to take a different direction, nor does it poke him for things he might have overlooked.  Rather,

For we pray not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that we may impetrate that which God has disposed to be fulfilled by our prayers in other words "that by asking, men may deserve to receive what Almighty God from eternity has disposed to give," as Gregory says [Dial. i, 8] (S.th., 2a2ae, q. 83, art. 2, resp.).

When I was in the seminary, we were told to prepare for our homilies "with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other," meaning that we are to illumine the events of the day with the light of God's Word.  I would take this a step further:  We engage in intercessory prayer with our Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other because, as the Second Vatican Council tells us, "the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel" (Gaudium et spes, 4).  If we are to pray for an end to COVID-19, the rubrics are no different.  Equipped with our knowledge of the Bible, the Lord calls us to scrutinize the "signs of the times in the light of the Gospel" and to pray accordingly:  What is God trying to tell the world?  What is God trying to tell the Church?  What is God trying to tell me?  My friend and our sister in Christ, Prof Dr Mary Healy, takes us in this direction in her superb article here.

Having discerned God's will regarding the plague in the light of the Gospel, we have that very clarity needed to pray strategically.

5.  Pray Humbly!
Permit me to make a daring statement:  The truly humble has God wrapped around his finger.  Of course, it is impossible to control God; what I mean here is that God so loves the disposition of the humble person that he is swift to his or her aid.  "O Lord, You will hear the desire of the meek; you will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to do justice..." (Ps 10:17, 18).

In the Old Testament, both Manassah and Hezekiah, both renowned for their wickedness, received an answer to their prayers on account of their humility:

And when Ahab heard those words [of Jezebel's sins], he tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted and lay in sackcloth, and went out dejectedly.  And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, "Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before Me?  Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days... (1 Kgs 21:27-29);

But Hezekiah did not make return according ot the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud.  Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem.  But Hezekiah hubled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inharbitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in teh days of Hezekiah (2 Chr 32:25-26).

St Peter wrote, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you.  Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares for you" (1 Pt 5:6).  Likewise, St James, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you" (Jas 4:10).

But this begs the question:  What, exactly, is humility?  The best answer I have heard was from a preaching by a Minorite friar, Fr Leo Clifford:  "It is simply the truth...that apart from God, we are nothing!"  This, in turn reminds us of the meaning of grace, the free, unearned, costly grace of God that's ours for the asking, provided that we credit nothing to ourselves and everything to God.  This is why the Publican went away forgiven, because he prayed humbly, whereas the "religious" man multiplied his sins by his presumptuous prayer (Lk 18:9-14).

Sisters and brothers in Christ:  God wills only good things for us!  But the storehouse of God's goodness must be asked for aright.  Let us pray with all repentance and humility.  Let us be filled with the Holy Spirit and pray in the Name of Jesus.  Let us hide the Word of God in our hearts so that it beats like God's own heart, and thus be able to see the world's sorrow in the light of the Gospel and thus be equipped to know what to pray for on the way to God's merciful cleansing this world of COVID-19.