The Power of Prayer

An Interesting Thing Happened

For the past few days, My Dear Wife and I were traveling in the Upper Peninsula area of Michigan.  Prior to that, there had been some disturbing things occurring with some of our relatives that were connected to their family history, and current family dysfunction.  It was disturbing to My Dear Wife, and late last week, we had been praying about it. 

During our evening prayers, we have a meditation that we read, and some particular prayers as well, and one particular evening, it became abundantly clear to us that we (she, in particular) had to trust God completely in these matters, as painful as they might be, and as desirous as we might be to try and intervene.

My Dear Wife was settled into this revelation, and we carried on.  But, the other night while in the UP, she became distressed, and that continued into yesterday morning.  As we were driving along heading to the interstate from where we had been staying at Boyne Mountain, MI, we passed a sign that had on it the picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus from Sister Faustina.  I did not see it at the time, as I was preparing to make a turn.  But, My Dear Wife told me she had just seen it.  Moments later, we passed a cross by the side of the road, probably from a death in a car accident some time ago.  Again, I did not see it as I was focused on another turn at the time.  She told me that it had a name on it, and that the name was the name of the central family member involved in the situation that we had previously been praying about.

We have enough faith to know that when these seeming "coincidences" occur, that they are God-incidences and require us to pray.  So, we did pray immediately for the individual with the same name, and for other family members connected to the individual.

This morning, I rejoined my prayer partners for our morning devotion at the chapel at St. George Parish, here in London.  Deacon George Sebok and I arrived earlier than our other partner for the day, and so I told him about what happened.  George then prayed with me for the situation, and in particular invited me and My Dear Wife to pray a particular prayer that we have found to be very fruitful in the past, a simplification of the Divine Mercy prayers.  He and I prayed it together this morning.

It goes as follows: "Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in your love for them (or name particular individuals or groups).  This prayer is said 10 times.  After the tenth time, we said the following: "Sacred Heart of Jesus, fill me with your blood."  We then repeated this 3 times.

It is not a magic potion, where pray this and you will win the lottery.  No, this is a serious prayer, to be prayed out of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Our Saviour, and out of trust in the mercy that comes from that Heart, the heart of the one who bled and died to save us all from sin and death.

The purpose of repetition is to build up in our own spirits the essence of the prayer, trusting in His Divine Mercy, a mercy and love that we cannot understand fully, or sometimes even remotely.  The purpose of the 11th prayer, filling me up with His blood, is to make me an instrument of His divine healing and mercy, by becoming like Him, more and more each day.

This is a prayer as simple as the Sign of the Cross, filled with meaning.  We trust in God enough, and in Our Divine Saviour to know that he loves the people involved in this situation in ways that we never can, because He is Creator, and we are the created, in His Image, but not Him.

We shall await healing of the particular situations here, and trust that all will happen in God's perfect will and perfect timing.  Our faith does not require a particular answer to this prayer at a particular moment, but our faith requires us to TRUST Him.