Prayer Works Because Prayer is Love

From the beginning, I prayed for Michael.

From the time he first saw me, Deacon Michael never wavered in his love for me. I still had my doubts when we were married in 1971. Our love grew and grew so that when he died after 48 years of marriage, I adored him.

He entered the Catholic Church in 1987, without hesitation and without precedent. He just woke up and said he wanted to become a Catholic. After that, he never wavered in his love for God and for the Church.

I could say that I spent the first 16 years of our marriage praying for his conversion, but I prayed for him even before I married him. And look what God did! Not only did become a Catholic, he was ordained a deacon. He grew and grew and grew in holiness and in love, which, when all is said and done, is the same thing.

Written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG AS YOU LISTEN:

You know, going to that part of Ecclesiastes that's not in this, I was thinking, with all due respect, I married the most beautiful woman in the world. I really did. I mean, even now after all these years I look at her. She's so beautiful.

But... I will say to you that there are times when she is angry with me, she is the most fearsome person I have ever seen in my life. The image of Laura yelling at me and being angry with me is not a pleasant image.

The image of her loving me, which I still don't understand, but I accept it as God's fate for me, is a very great source of strength.

And I try to imagine... and it is fairly easy for me to imagine... being Monica's husband. Like I told you. Truly, the story is, it had to have driven him crazy.

He says, "Monica, if you would just stop praying for me, I'll buy you a new car. You can get a diamond ring. Just stop it. I love you, but just stop praying for me."

" No."

And then we see Jesus coming along. Someone has died. Happens all the time; even more so back then. Younger people were dying, and the man's mother was there and she was crying, and we've seen that. And Jesus comes up and solves the problem.

He loves us so much.

And the thing is... it's this efficacy of prayer stuff. We know prayer works in our lives. And we know… I'll guarantee you, everybody here when we do the collect and bring our prayer to God... our husband, our wife, our children... they're all there. We're praying for them. They all have special needs and we pray every day for them.

“God, you know my prayers, why don't I just say, ‘You got 'em. You know what they are. Every day, You know I do it.’"

Because it works. And how does it work?

Is it because… well, Laura’s a good example… is it because wives are so very persistent? My wife is very persistent, so I can say that. Or is it because they know and understand that there is something more that is something special. That we can pray for all of these things, whatever they might be. But if we pray for love, which is what Monica did, she did it for her husband, she did it for St. Augustine, she prayed for all of her children, I'm sure her prayer list probably took her five minutes to get through in the beginning.

And then she would go, "And all those other people for whom I promised to pray and I meant to pray.” I learned that from my wife. She's real big on that one, too. We do the rosary and she always adds that in.

But by nature, prayer works. Because on a fundamental level, prayer is based on love. "O Lord, I want Robert to be better. Pray, let me give of myself, from my very heart, that Robert will be better." Better what, I don't know Robert. But that's how it is. "Oh my children! Come and help him. Open his eyes that he can see, he can come, he can be part of your church. He can get..." Whatever. It is a fundamental of love that those we pray for, the ones we pray for most ardently, when I pray, "Lord, I want to be as rich as Bill Gates!" The Lord looks and He and says, "No, you don't." "But Lord, take care of my wife. Help her get better. Help my children. Help these I'm praying for. These people I know who are sick. Help them."

God is there. "Yep. I can go along with that."

And so, in a very sincere sense maybe you can substitute the world "prayer" for "love"... we are called to love God, to pray to God, because we love Him so much. We love our neighbor. We are called to pray for our neighbor, for their good, not for their bad, but for their good... for their redemption, for their well-being, for their salvation. We are called to pray.

We know that we are in the communion of saints. We know the communion of saints includes all of us and all who have died except for those who have gone to Hell. They are the communion of saints and we can pray for them. We can pray and ask my grandmother to, "Intercede for my son because he's so much like you. Can you pray for him? Can you intercede for him?" We call for the saints. I love St. Peter because St. Peter messed it up so many times. I can call on St. Peter and say, "St. Peter, I did it again. I know you understand. I didn't do what I was supposed to do", and I rely on his intercession. Other people have a tendency to lose things and they feel this very close affinity to St. Anthony.

But in all of those things, at the very core of the prayers, the prayers of St. Monica for her husband and her children, our prayers to God for one another, for our children, for the world, all the prayers that we have, you listen to them and all of them are based on the very fundamental of love.

And so, what St. Monica represents to us is a sometimes annoying persistence in love. Like St. Augustine decides he's going to go off to Italy and tries to figure out how he's going to get his mother not to come with him. She comes with him anyway. He abandons her and he heads off to Milan. And she follows him anyway. And he goes, "Mom, what are you doing?" "I am here because you soul is in jeopardy and I need to be here to pray for you." "Oh mom, I'm an adult. Don't worry about me. I'm smart! Look, I've written books and everything." "No, you're not. You need to find God. If you think you want wisdom, you need to find God. And I'm going to keep on praying for you."

That's the prayer. That's the love that was shown by St. Monica. And that's the prayer that we are to have for everyone. Very fundamental. When it says, "Love they neighbor" there are things of charity that we are called to do, unquestionably, we are called to bring charity to the world and give ourselves to others, but we are called to pray.

If I came up… I'm going to pick on Mayve… if I came up to Mayve and said, "Mayve, you're a poor pitiful mess. I've got some five-day-old bread, here, why don't you have something to eat", which doesn't really satisfy you because you don't like that kind of bread. Have I shown love?

Or if I see Mayve out in the street, abandoned by her musician husband, not having enough money to feed her children because he won't get a decent job, and I say, "I'm gong to pray for you and I'm going to pray for your husband. I'm going to meet your bodily needs. Here, here is what they are," am I expressing love?

An integral part of that is that my prayers, even if I don't' know his name, is, "You know, that woman I met on the street that is so pitiful, having to work for the government to feed her family because she has a ne'er-do-well husband." God knows who the ne'er-do-well husband is. I am going to pray that he actually learn to support his family. Now, don't tell Jeff about this. He'll never come back. [It very much was NOT true, that’s why he said it.]

But it is the love that is in prayer. It is the love that is represented by St. Monica. It is the love that we have for one another as shown in the prayers that we have for one another.

August 20, 2019 2