Let Prayer Be Our Life Breath
EMBER DAYS OF PENTECOST 1975
My dear ones,
Blessed Elena Guerra felt inspired by God to create a permanent cenacle in the Church. This is what others who came before her had felt inspired by God to do. The whole Church, vivified by the Holy Spirit, is a family of praying souls, a permanent cenacle. But, within the Church, there can be several religious families of people who are particularly committed to prayer as their specific mission of love. Our community is one such family. Prayer should therefore be our life-breath. Certainly, it is our highest and truest commitment. What good are we if we aren't really a family of prayerful souls? Our adoption as God's children calls us to this: as God's children, we should participate in the eternal dialogue between the Eternal Father and the Eternal Word in the Holy Spirit. Our participation in this dialogue consists of the divine praise that is born of several things: the knowledge of God, the recognition of His divine perfections, the vision of His divine Beauty. But if we are God's children in Christ Jesus, we can also participate in His Mission of Salvation for our brethren throughout the world; thus there is need for intercessory prayer. In intercessory prayer we remember all the world's needs and feel for the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, and sinners. Prayer ought to bring about our union with God in the joy of intimate love; and this love should grow every day. This love ought also to bring about unity with our brethren throughout the world. In this unity, we should experience mercy and compassion for others and thereby share more and more in their humiliation and sorrow.
Is our prayer really sincere? Is it constant? Is it living prayer? The world of today particularly needs us to respond to our calling. It needs this much more than ever before. Where is the world heading? We do not deny the fact that the journey towards unity is irreversible. We do not deny the fact that the world will witness a greater unity of different peoples, races and cultures. But all of this remains ambiguous if such unity is not the work of the Holy Spirit working in the heart of the world. [Without the action of the HolySpirit] This unity could come about by other means. It could involve a more terrible oppression of people and their deeper enslavement . This kind of unity would lead to the destruction of those values which enrich and enliven unity. There is a kind of unity which is born of death.
We can accomplish very little in the social or political realm. Certainly, we are called to work in the social and political sphere as well. We do not intend to withdraw from social and political commitment. As far as we are able to live social or political commitment, we shall show, if anything, our sincerity in working more effectively for a better world. But we intend to accomplish this through prayer.
How much hatred in the eyes of today's young people as they march together in the streets of our cities! How cold and calculating are those individuals today who are working to subvert all order. Some of them are even working to take God away from our people, using subtle, networking techniques. What should we do about this? Several of you have expressed their dismay upon seeing certain rallies. Nothing seemed to be able to hold back these unstoppable pouring crowds clamouring for destruction.
Is it not true that the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts? Is it not true that Someone greater than the world lives in us? A sign of the triumph of evil is, most of all, our fear. Our fear is not admissible. God will give His children the power to live up to the mission He entrusts to them.
Let us not forget, however, that the most powerful weapon given to us by God is prayer: humble, trusting, continual prayer; prayer that should be more lively the more it seems that God doesn't answer us; prayer that is more for them than for us: we should ask not so much to be saved from death and persecution, but rather that they might be saved from hatred, lies, and evil. Are they not our brethren? Are they not in more need of God's grace? Indeed, they need God's grace to be healed, brought to the truth, and resuscitated from death. Our love for these poor brothers and sisters of ours must really be all the greater the more distant they are from God. We really ought to pray to God and obtain from Him a downpour of His Infinite Mercy on this world of ours, which we do indeed love. Could God perhaps deny to us what He Himself has inspired us to ask? Let us be trusting: "I have overcome the world!" Jesus says. But we shall share in this victory only insofar as we live by faith, faith that is strong and confident, and that doesn't flag during trials, but rather grows stronger and firmer in them.
Let us pray, as this is what God wants us to do. And this is a small request. But He promised us, that through prayer we may have a share in His Divine Power, provided however that our prayer is animated by love. Indeed love is the life of God's children.
If we are united in this prayer, God will recognise us as His children and make us instruments of His salvation, which He merited for all by His death on the Cross. I bless you all in the Lord.