The Power of a Single Prayer

Life throws hard punches at everyone, but have you ever wondered how some people are never defeated? For every expatriate working in Saudi Arabia–the annual vacation is the highlight of the year. I too was looking forward to my trip back to India, which always took place around Christmas. There were just a few weeks left for the trip when I received an email from my family. Nancy, a close friend of ours, had called them to say that Jesus was asking for special prayers for my vacation. Of course, I added it to my daily prayer list. Nothing eventful happened during most of my stay. The weeks at home went by quickly. Christmas came and was celebrated with the usual gusto. After a month and a half of fun-filled days, my vacation days were almost over. Nothing extraordinary occurred, and the message was slowly forgotten. A Hard Punch Two days before my return trip, I decided to start packing my bags. The first item on the list was my passport, and I could not locate it anywhere! Then came a numbing realization: I had taken it to the travel agent that morning to confirm my flight, and it was still in the pocket of the jeans I had worn. However, I had earlier thrown these jeans in the laundry basket without checking the pockets! I ran to the washing machine and opened the lid. The jeans were whirling around. I pulled them out as fast as I could and pushed my hand into the front pocket. A feeling of dread spread over me as I pulled out the wet passport.  The official seals on most of the inside pages were damaged. Some of the travel stamps were displaced and, most distressingly, the ink on the Saudi entry visa was smudged too. I had no idea what to do. The only other option was to apply for a new passport and try to get a new entry visa upon arrival in the capital city. However, I didn’t have enough time left for this. My job was on the line. My Battalion to the Rescue I laid the passport open on my bed and turned on the ceiling fan, hoping to dry it out. I told the rest of my family what had happened. As usual, we joined together in prayer, entrusted the situation to Jesus, and asked Him for guidance. I also called Nancy to tell her about the mishap. She started praying for us too; there was nothing more that we could do. Later that night, Nancy called me to say that Jesus had told her His angel would see me through to Riyadh! Two days later, finding strength in prayer, I said goodbye to my family, checked in my luggage, and boarded my first flight.  At the Mumbai airport where I changed flights, I joined the line for the immigration clearance at the international terminal. Feeling a bit anxious, I waited with my passport open. Thankfully, the officer barely glanced down before absent-mindedly stamping the page and sending me off! Filled with divine grace, I felt at peace. After the flight landed in Saudi Arabia, I continued to pray as I collected my baggage and joined one of the long lines at the immigration checkpoint. The line moved slowly as the officer carefully examined each passport before stamping it with an entry visa. Finally, it was my turn. With my passport opened to the proper page, I walked toward him. At that very moment, another officer walked up and started a conversation with him. As he was immersed in the discussion, the immigration officer stamped my passport with the entry visa, barely even glancing down at the pages.  I was back in Riyadh, thanks to my guardian angel, who had “led me through the fire” at just the right moment.  Guardian—Now, Then, and Always Undoubtedly, the trip boosted my relationship with my guardian angel. However, Jesus underlined yet another lesson for me: I am being led by a living God who foresees every puddle in my path.  Walking hand in hand with Him, listening to His directions and obeying them, I can handle any obstacle. “When you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it”’ (Isaiah 30:21). If Nancy had not been listening to God’s voice, and if we had not been praying as instructed, my life might have swerved off track. Every Christmas since then, every trip back to my home country serves as a fond reminder of God’s leading providence and protective embrace. 

As a little girl, I wanted to become a Superhero but eventually I accepted that it was a child’s silly dream, until…  When I was a kid, I woke up early on Saturday mornings to watch Super-friends, a cartoon about a group of superheroes who saved the world. I wanted to be a superhero when I grew up. I would imagine getting a signal that someone needed help and quickly flying to their aid. All the superheroes I saw on TV remained incognito. To the world, they seemed like regular folks with boring lives. However, in times of trouble, they quickly mobilized and worked together to save humanity from the bad guys.  Once I grew up, I recognized that the superheroes in cartoons were imaginary characters. I gave up on my silly notions...until, one day, when I met a true superhero who opened my eyes. I would occasionally drop in to pray at the perpetual adoration chapel in a local church. Since someone has to be present at all times during Eucharistic adoration, volunteers sign up for short intervals. On many of my visits, I noticed an older man in a wheelchair who sat and prayed for hours at the chapel. He looked to be about 90 years old. Every so often, he would pull out different items from a bag—a Bible, a rosary, or a piece of paper that I assume was a prayer list. I wondered what kind of job he did when he was younger and physically healthy. Whatever he did before was probably not as significant as what he was doing now. I realized that this gentleman in a wheelchair was doing something far more important than most of us who were busy running around.  Incognito superheroes were hiding in plain sight! This meant I, too, could be a superhero...of prayer.  Responding to SOS  I decided to join the church prayer chain, a group of people who have committed to intercede for others privately. Many of these prayer warriors are elderly. Some are people with disabilities. Some are in seasons of life where they are homebound for various reasons. We get email notifications of names of people who have requested prayers. Just like the superheroes in the cartoons I watched long ago, we get a signal when someone needs help.  The prayer requests come in at all times of the day: Mr. X fell off a ladder and is being taken to the hospital. Mrs. Y has been diagnosed with cancer. A grandchild has been involved in a car crash. A man’s brother has been kidnapped in Nigeria. A family has lost their home in a tornado. The needs are many.  We take our responsibility as intercessors seriously. We stop whatever we are doing and pray. We are an army of prayer warriors. We are fighting invisible forces of darkness. Thus, we put on the full armor of God and fight with spiritual weapons. We pray on behalf of others who are in need. With perseverance and dedication, we continually submit our petitions to God.  The Hero Effect Does prayer make a difference? Every so often, we get feedback from the people who have requested prayer. The kidnapped man in Nigeria was released within a week. Many experience miraculous healing. Most of all, people are strengthened and comforted during times of suffering. Jesus prayed, and He revolutionized the world! Prayer was part of His ministry of healing, deliverance, and providing for those in need. Jesus was in constant communication with the Father. He taught His disciples to pray as well.  Prayer allows us to understand God’s perspective and align our will to His Divine nature. And when we intercede for others, we become partners with Christ in His ministry of love. When we share our concerns with the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, there is a shift in the atmosphere. Our faithful prayer, united with God’s will, can move mountains. “We beg you, Lord, to help and defend us. Deliver the oppressed. Pity the insignificant. Raise the fallen. Show yourself to the needy. Heal the sick. Bring back those of your people who have gone astray. Feed the hungry. Lift up the weak. Take off the prisoners’ chains. May every nation come to know that you alone are God, that Jesus is your Child, that we are your people, the sheep that you pasture. Amen.” (Saint Clement)

She was diagnosed with chronic OCD, and put on meds for a lifetime. Then, something unexpected happened. In the 1990s, I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The doctor prescribed me medication and told me I would have to take them for the rest of my life. Some people think that mental health issues happen because you lack faith, but there was nothing wrong with my faith. I had always deeply loved God and relied on Him in all things, but I also felt an abiding disabling guilt. I had not been able to shake off the belief that everything that was wrong with the world was my fault. I had a Law degree, but my heart had never been there. I had taken up law to impress my mother, who thought my choice of teaching as a profession wasn’t good enough. But I had married and given birth to my first child just before I finished it, then gone on to have seven beautiful children, so I had spent more time learning to be a mother than working in law. When we moved to Australia, the law was different, so, I went back to university to finally study my first love, Teaching. But even when I got a job doing what I loved, I felt that I was trying to justify my existence by earning money. Somehow, I didn’t feel that looking after my family and nurturing the people entrusted to me was good enough. In fact, with my crippling guilt and feeling of inadequacy, nothing ever felt enough. Totally Unexpected Because of our family size, it wasn’t always easy to get away on a holiday, so we were excited when we heard about the Carry Home in Pemberton where payment was a donation of what you could afford. It had a beautiful country setting close to forests. We planned to go for a weekend family retreat. They also had a prayer and worship group in Perth. When I joined, I was made to feel very welcome.  There, at one of the retreats, something totally unexpected and overwhelming happened. I had just received prayer when I suddenly fell to the ground. Rolled up on the floor in a fetal position, I screamed and screamed and screamed. They carried me out onto this rickety old wooden verandah outside and continued to pray until eventually, I stopped screaming. This was totally unsought and unexpected. But I knew that it was deliverance. I just felt empty as if something had left me. After the retreat, my friends continued to check up on me and come to pray over me, asking for Mary’s intercession that the gifts of the Holy Spirit would become manifest in me. I felt so much better that after a week or two, I decided to reduce my dose of medication. Within three months, I had stopped taking the medication and felt better than I ever had. Melting Away I no longer felt the need to prove myself or pretend that I was better than I was. I didn’t feel that I had to excel in all things. I felt grateful for the gift of life, my family, my prayerful community and this tremendous connection with God. Freed of the need to justify my existence, I realized I could not justify my existence. It’s a gift–life, family, prayer, connection with God–these are all gifts, not something you are ever going to earn. You accept it and you thank God. I became a better person. I didn’t have to show off, compete, or arrogantly insist that my way was the best. I realized I didn’t have to be better than the other person because it didn’t matter. God loves me, God cares for me. Out of the grip of my disabling guilt, I have since realized that “If God didn’t want me, He would have made someone else.” My relationship with my mother had always been ambivalent. Even after becoming a mother, I was still struggling with these feelings of ambivalence. But this experience changed that for me. As God chose Mary to bring Jesus into the world, He had chosen Mary to help me on my way. My issues in the relationship with my mother, and subsequently with the Holy Mother, slowly melted away. I felt like John at the foot of the Cross when Jesus told him: “Behold your Mother.” I have come to know Mary as the perfect mother. Now, when my mind fails, the Rosary kicks in to rescue me! I never realized how much I needed her until I made her an indispensable part of my life. Now, I couldn’t imagine stepping away.

There is a poetic meditation of an early twentieth-century Greek novelist named Nikos Kazantzakis that I keep on my nightstand when Advent comes around every year.  He pictures Christ as a teenager, watching the people of Israel from a distant hilltop, not yet ready to begin his ministry but acutely, painfully sensitive to the longing and suffering of His people.  The God of Israel is there among them—but they don’t know it yet. I was reading this to my students the other day, as I do every year at the start of Advent, and one of them said to me after class: “I’ll bet that’s how Jesus feels now too.”  I asked him what he meant. He said: “You know, Jesus, sitting there in the tabernacle, and us just walking past like He isn’t even there.” Ever since, I’ve had this new image in my Advent prayers of Jesus, waiting in the Tabernacle, looking out over His people—hearing our groans, our pleas, and our cries. Waiting...   Somehow, this is the way God chooses to come to us. The birth of the Messiah is THE KEY EVENT IN ALL HUMAN HISTORY, and yet, God wanted it to take place ‘so quietly that the world went about its business as if nothing had happened.’ A few shepherds noticed, and so did the magi (and we could even mention Herod, who noticed for all the wrong reasons!). Then, apparently, the whole thing was forgotten. For a time. Somehow…there must be something in the waiting that is good for us. God chooses to wait for us. He chooses to make us wait for Him. And when you think about it in this light, the whole history of salvation becomes a history of waiting.  So, you see, there’s this simultaneous sense of urgency—that we need to answer God’s call and that we need Him to answer our call, and soon. “Answer me, Lord, when I call to you,” the psalmist says. There’s something so brazen about this verse that it’s charming.   There’s an urgency in the Psalms. But there is also this sense that we must learn to be patient and wait—wait in joyful hope—and find God’s answer in the waiting. 

Are you afraid of death? I was too, until I heard of this PhD. As a child, I always found it quite intimidating to attend funerals. I would become distressed as I imagined the deep sorrow encompassing the grieving family members. But with the pandemic, the news of neighbors, relatives, parishioners, and friends passing away led me to take a 180 degree change in the way I approach death. Death feels less scary these days. Now, it seems like a joyful return to the Father's house after having done His will on earth.  A steady rise in the YouTube live streaming of funerals has somehow been a very edifying experience to me. It has helped me understand how uncertain life is. "Nothing is more certain than death, but nothing is more uncertain than the hour of death." Therefore, we ought to be prepared as death will come as a thief in the night. Saint Gregory states that God, for our good, keeps the hour of our death hidden from us, so that we may ever be found prepared for death.  Recently, while reflecting on the last seven words of Jesus, I listened to a preacher speak about the importance of pursuing a “PhD,” which is nothing but “Preparation for a Happy Death.”  When delving deeper into this, I came across a book written by Saint Alphonsus Ligouri titled Preparation for Death. It is a must-read for anyone striving to live a Christian life. It made me realize the fragility of life on earth and how we ought to strive to live for heaven. I would like to share a few important insights which changed my overall perspective about life and death. All worldly glory in our lives will vanish away At the hour of death, all the applause, amusements, and grandeur disappear like a mist. Worldly acclamations lose all their splendor when they are reviewed from one’s death-bed. We see nothing but smoke, dust, vanity, and misery. Therefore, let us refrain from chasing after worldly titles, so that we may gain the eternal crown. The time we have is too short to waste on worldly vanities. The Saints always contemplated death Saint Charles Borromeo kept a skull upon his table so that he could contemplate death. Blessed Juvenal Ancina had this motto written on a skull "What thou art I was once; what I am thou wilt be." Venerable Caesar Baronius had the words, "Remember death!" upon his ring.  True meaning of ‘self-care’ Self-care isn’t about pampering ourselves with a variety of delicacies, clothing, amusements, and sensual enjoyments of the world! The true love for the body consists in treating it with rigor, in refusing it all pleasures which may lead to eternal unhappiness and misery.   Let us visit the cemetery often We must go there not only to pray for the dead, but as Saint Chrysostom says: “We must go to the grave to contemplate dust, ashes, worms...and sigh.”   The corpse first turns yellow, and then black. Afterwards the body is covered with a white, disgusting mold. It then forms a sticky slime, which attracts worms that feed on the flesh. The worms, after having consumed all the flesh, devour one another. In the end, nothing remains but a fetid skeleton, which in the course of time falls to pieces. Behold what man is: he is a little dust on the threshing floor, which is blown away by the wind. That ‘tomorrow’ to go for confession might never come What if today is my last day on earth? If I commit a sin today and decide to reconcile with God tomorrow, what would become of me in eternity? How many poor, departed souls might have been through such regretful episodes? Once Saint Camillus de Lellis remarked, “If all these dead bodies could come back to life, what would they not do to gain eternal life?”  You and I have the opportunity to make changes. What are we doing for our souls?  Our present life is a continual warfare with hell in which we are in constant danger of losing our souls.  What if we are at the point of death now?  Would we not ask God to grant us one more month or one more week in order to make our conscience clear in His sight? But God, in His great mercy, is giving us that time NOW. Let us be grateful to Him, try to atone for sins committed, and use every means to be found in a state of grace. When Sister Death arrives, there will be no time to atone for past sins, for she will come singing–“Make haste, it is now almost time to leave the world ; make haste, what is done, is done.” 

Saint Januarius (or San Gennaro, as he is known in his native Italy) was born in Naples during the second century to a wealthy aristocratic family. He was ordained a priest at the remarkable age of fifteen. By age twenty, he was bishop of Naples. During the Christian persecution begun by the emperor Diocletian, Januarius hid many Christians, including his former classmate, Sossius, who would also become a saint. Sossius was exposed as a Christian and imprisoned. When Januarius visited him in jail, he too was arrested. Stories vary as to whether he and his fellow Christians were thrown to wild animals that refused to attack them or into a furnace from which they emerged unharmed. But all the stories agree that Januarius was eventually beheaded around the year 305 A.D. And this is where the story gets very interesting. Pious followers gathered some of his blood into glass vials and preserved it as a relic. That blood, preserved to this day, manifests remarkable qualities. On three occasions each year, as it has since this miracle first occurred in 1389, the coagulated blood liquefies. Stored in glass ampules, the dried dark red blood that clings to one side of the vessel miraculously turns to liquid that fills the bottle from side to side. Besides his feast day, September 19, the miracle also occurs on the day his remains were moved to Naples and the anniversary of Naples being spared from the effects of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1631. Several scientific investigations have tried and failed to explain how solid blood can become liquefied. And any trickery or foul play has been excluded. Joyous shouts of: “The miracle has happened!” fill the Naples Cathedral as the faithful kiss the reliquary that holds the saint’s blood. What an amazing gift God has given the Church in this remarkable saint, and in the miracle that each year reminds us of how Gennaro—and so many others—shed their blood for the sake of their Lord. As Tertullian said, ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.’

Practice this and you will never regret… One antiphon struck me in the final days of last Advent: “Let us see His Face and we shall be saved.” Yes, I prayed, Jesus, let me see Your Face. I think of Mary and Joseph looking at Your Face for the first time as they gently hold You and kiss that Face, and lay You on the straw covered with a warming blanket. How beautiful You are, even before Your eyes open and You look back at me. Rekindle Your Love Around this time, I read from a book by Sister Immaculata, a Carmelite nun, (The Pathways of Prayer: COMMUNION WITH GOD published by Mount Carmel Hermitage, 1981) something that also touched my heart. She spoke of how we can keep our love for You, Jesus, which we profess in our formal times of prayer and at Eucharist as we receive You into our bodies and souls.  I eagerly read about this, as I had been struggling with feeling led to get one more thing to eat or drink in the nearby kitchen. As I sat there in my prayer corner, I realized the truth of a saying someone posted on her refrigerator: “What you are looking for isn’t in here.” Yes, I could turn to You instead of going to my fridge, couldn’t I? So I wanted to read what Sister Immaculata had to say about rekindling my Love. She affirmed: “Constant conversing with God in His living presence is the generator of the soul. It keeps the heat and blood flowing…There must be a great fidelity to the practice of this loving recollection with God in faith.” She showed how “there must be special care that this interior glance at God, however brief, precede and conclude every exterior action.” She began to share how the great mystic, Saint Teresa of Avila, spoke of this with her nuns: “If she can, let her practice recollection many times daily.” Saint Teresa understood that it would not be easy at first, but that “if you practice it for a year, or perhaps for only six months, you will be successful in attaining it”—so great a benefit and treasure. The Saints “teach us that this constant communion is a most efficacious means of arriving quickly at a high degree of holiness. These loving acts dispose the soul for an awareness of the touch of the Holy Spirit and prepare it for that loving infusion of God into the soul which we call contemplation…that enables us to fulfill our Christian obligation to pray everywhere and always.” Into the Habit Loop These are a few ways that I have been incorporating this practice. When going up and down stairs, or even when walking on certain paths, I say in rhythm with my steps: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I love You. Save souls.” When sitting for a meal, I ask Jesus to sit with me. When finishing my eating, I thank Him. The hardest practice was to pray before taking any snack or bite when not at a meal, or when preparing for one; I undertook this for Lent, and finally am forming a new habit. When I pass a Church or Chapel, I say some variation of “Jesus, thank You for Your presence in Eucharist. Please bless all from this holy place.” When passing up a sweet during Lent or on Fridays, I pray for someone or some country in great need. Sister Immaculata assures us: “God will reveal Himself. He is thirsting to do so, but He cannot unless the heart and mind are prepared to receive Him. Our life of prayer does not really begin until we have laid the foundations of a pure conscience, detachment, and the practice of remaining in His presence.” “True freedom is the freedom from selfishness. The habit of constant recollection and continual prayer in the presence of God is the remedy for that fear of dying to self and selfishness which is so ingrained in us…Prayer and self-denial are so inseparably linked... because the love of Jesus makes a person despise himself.” This chapter ends with a quote from the Imitation of Christ: “Be humble and peaceful and Jesus will be with you. Be devout and quiet and Jesus will stay with you…You must be naked and carry a pure heart to God, if you will attend at leisure and see how sweet the Lord is” (Book II, chapter 8). As I focus on areas where I am indulging without first praying, I feel inspired to find a prayer to draw me closer to the Lord whom I love, serve, and pray to already for hours each day. Jesus, yes, please help me grow in the practice of living in Your presence, seeking to see Your Face more and more”.

Keep digging through this article to discover a new bypass for your prayer life Some years ago, my sister’s house had a major plumbing problem. There was an undetected water leak somewhere on the property which caused her water bill to increase from $70 a month to $400 a month. They tried to discover the source of the leak, with her son doing a lot of digging and excavating, but to no avail. After days of fruitless search, a friend came up with a solution. His idea: forget about trying to find the leak. Instead, go to the head of the water pipe, attach new piping, and bypass the area that they knew was problematic due to pooling water. Lay the new pipe along a new path and abandon the old pipeline altogether. So that’s what they did. Following a day of hard work and lots of digging, they accomplished that plan and, Voila! The problem was fixed, and my sister’swater bill went back to normal. As I reflected on this, my thoughts turned to unanswered prayers. Sometimes we are praying for people or for situations and those prayers don’t seem to make any difference. The pipeline to God’s ear seems “leaky.”Maybe we pray and pray and pray for someone to have a conversion, to come back to church. Or we pray for someone to find a job who has been unemployed for a while. Or we pray for healing for someone battling serious health issues. Whatever the situation is, we don’t see any progress and our prayers feel like they are wasted or useless. I remember praying for a very difficult personnel conflict in the missionary organization I work with. This was a situation that was very stressful and draining on my emotional and physical energy. Nothing I tried on a natural level seemed to resolve it, and my prayers for a solution seemed to have no effect. In my prayer one day, I cried out yet again to God in desperation and heard a still, quiet voice in my heart, “Surrender it to Me. I will take care of it.” I realized that I needed a shift in my approach, a “plumbing bypass” so to speak. My attitude up until this point was trying to solve the situation by my efforts: mediate, talk through, try various compromises, placate the parties involved. But since nothing had worked and things only got worse, I knew that I needed to let God take over. So I gave Him my assent. “Lord, I surrender it all to you. Do whatever You need to do, and I will cooperate.” Within 48 hours of that prayer, the situation was completely resolved! With speed that took my breath away, one of the parties made a decision which totally changed everything, and the stress and conflict was eliminated just like that. I was in awe and could not believe what had just happened. What did I learn? If I am praying in a certain way for something or someone and have been stuck and am seeing no breakthroughs, maybe I need to change the way I am praying. To stop and ask the Holy Spirit, “Is there another way I should be praying for this person? Is there something else I should be asking for, a specific grace they need right now?” Maybe we need to try a “plumbing bypass.” Instead of trying to find the leak or the source of the resistance, we can pray that God bypass it. God is very creative (the source of creativity, the original Creator) and if we keep cooperating with Him, He will come up with other ways to resolve issues and bring grace that we haven’t even thought of. Let God be God and give Him room to move and act. In my case, I needed to step out of the way, acknowledge in humility that what I had been doing wasn’t working, and surrender more deeply to the Lord so that He could act. But each situation is different, so ask God what He wants you to do and listen for His instructions. Follow those to the best of your ability and leave the results in His hands. And remember what Jesus said: “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” Luke 18:27

We have all been given the gift of time, but what do we do with it? Sometimes I have trouble understanding what God is trying to tell me. I often make Him repeat Himself. Last year, over and over, I felt the Lord was placing these words on my heart –“Put a hedge around it.” I eventually asked for clarification and this scripture came to mind: “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.” (Matthew 21:33) I knew that hedges were bushes grown closely together, often to enclose gardens. When I asked God what He wanted me to enclose, I came to understand that I was to guard my time, especially my time with Him. So, I began to be more careful with my morning routine. I became more conscious of my waking thoughts, dreams, and songs running through my head. I began to journal. I strove to raise my heart to the Lord with praise and thanksgiving before even stepping out of bed. Instead of sifting through social media feeds or reading the news, I poured over the daily Mass readings each day, with my morning coffee in hand. I am guarding my interior life. I am guarding my time with the Lord. I feel rather like a watchman at daybreak. When I sought out a spiritual director this past year, the first thing he asked was if I had a daily prayer routine. His number one goal for me was to keep a regular and consistent prayer life. My husband and I now pray more faithfully as a couple. We have begun to pray more intentionally at mealtimes, adding heart-felt prayers along with the ones we know by heart. At the end of the day, we are keeping our commitment to pray as a family. I pray in the car. I pray in church. I pray on my morning jog. Sometimes I walk the circumference of a park while praying the Rosary or Divine Mercy, putting a hedge of prayer around it. I believe these new habits are already bearing fruit. I have noticed a decline in questionable activity at the park next door. I have also noticed my husband and I are working more on the same page and are more willing to laugh off our differences. But most importantly, I have noticed a change in myself. I am more at peace. I am more in tune with what the Lord is speaking to my heart. I am more prepared to meet the challenges of each day. God desires us all to pray without ceasing, but the first step is to put prayer hedges around our days. We need to offer up the first fruits of our day to the Lord and end our day with prayer. Our prayer hedges will differ, but we must be sure to put them up to smite the tactics of the devil. God is ever drawing close to us, and He wants us to draw close to Him. But we are easily distracted. We need to diligently guard our time. Prayer hedges will lead to a more fruitful place.

It isn’t easy to say ‘I forgive’ and truly forgive until you do this... “For freedom Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1) I’m sure the majority of people would be aware that forgiveness is at the very heart of the Christian message, but many would be surprised to learn that not forgiving somebody can result in physical pain. I know this from personal experience. Several times, I have witnessed the power of the Holy Spirit in healing this terrible, often paralysing, sickness. Not a Cliché The first words Jesus spoke, as He was dying on the Cross, were words of forgiveness (Luke 23:34). His loving sacrifice was the moment that mankind had awaited, - to set them free from sin and death. Forgiveness was again on His lips when He met His disciples after He rose from the dead, giving them the power to grant it on His behalf (John 20:19-23). When the Apostles asked Him how to pray, Jesus responded with a prayer allowing us to address God as ‘Our Father’, and asking Him to ‘forgive us our trespasses (sins) as we forgive those who trespass (sin) against us’ (Matthew 6:12). If we expect forgiveness ourselves, we must forgive others (Matthew 5:23-26; 6:14). Unforgiveness can be likened to a clenched fist. A clenched fist is tense, and is often clenched in anger. It is really only fit for one thing; to hit somebody, or at least to be ready to. If that fist does hit somebody, then it is a fair assumption to expect one back, creating more animosity. If the fist is clenched, it is not open. An open hand is able to receive but if it is closed and clenched it is not possible to accept what may be offered. Alternatively, when we open our hands so we can receive, we are also able to give what we receive. When He Sets Free As I prayed about this at Mass, I had an image of a walking stick, and realized that when we do not forgive, it hinders our walk through life. After Mass, a man approached as we chatted outside, asking us to take a picture of him outside the church. When I noticed his walking stick, I had a sense that his sickness was caused by unforgiveness. As the conversation continued, he began to tell me about his past, concluding with a request to keep him in my prayers, since he was suffering with a bad back. I invited him to pray with me immediately because Jesus wanted to heal him, but it would require something from him. Intrigued and open, he agreed, asking what would be required. I told him that he would need to forgive the people he had just mentioned and anybody else who had injured him. I could see him struggling internally, so I encouraged him with the assurance that he didn’t have to rely on his own strength to forgive. If he forgave in the name of Jesus, then Jesus would empower him, lead him and set him free. His eyes lit up as he whispered, “With my Lord’s strength, yes, I can forgive.” I led him in a prayer, which ended by praying for the healing of his back by laying hands on the problem area (Mark 16:15-18). I told him to do what Jesus said and claim the healing by giving thanks to God in the belief that he had received it, (Mark 11:22-25). This was on Friday evening. On Sunday, he sent me a text message, “Praise the Lord, Jesus has healed my back.” I praised the Lord indeed, thanking Him with all my heart. I was particularly struck by this detail. We had asked for the healing on the Friday by the power and merits of the Cross. The answer was received on the third day, Sunday, the day of Resurrection. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “People think forgiveness is a lovely thing until they have something to forgive.” It is important to know that forgiveness is an act of the will; it is something we choose. That is not to say it is an easy choice, as often it can seem like the hardest, most painful decision in the world to make, but when we face everything in the Name of Jesus, ‘through Him, with Him, and in Him’, we learn that ‘with God nothing will be impossible’ (Luke 1:37). It is essential that we ask ourselves if there is anybody in our lives that we need to forgive. Jesus teaches us, “Whenever you stand up to pray, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in Heaven may forgive you your sins’ (Mark 11:25). Therefore, we must bring everything to Jesus and allow Him to set us free, because “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36).