Representative Prayer-Community

Representative Prayer – Community

 Today we will continue the topic of surrogate prayer and again draw from Father Hieronymus’s book Glowing Coals. I want to focus on two dimensions of surrogate prayer – opening up horizons and building community.

                We are often subject to a narrowing of our living space. We are not pursuing, and therefore we concentrate only on the most essential ones to at least manage it. We solve our children, our parents, our work, our living, our solitude, our sinfulness and the like. If we have only been in this circle for a long time, and we have no impulse to pull us out of it, over time our whole life will shrink only to our immediate micro world. We are losing contact with reality, and our problems are starting to appear to be the biggest and most difficult. Our prayer also narrows down only to our problems, to our closest ones. If we also pray for something else – peace, for example, it is only because we want to provide peace for our loved ones.

                Proxy prayer can be an effective aid before closing into this world. It can help me to realize that prayer has power and therefore can open new horizons. For Jesus has sent us all over the world, so I can include everyone in my prayers. Father Hieronymus writes about statistics that show that the number of atheists is growing four times faster than the number of Christians. This means that every day the number of Christians worldwide is smaller. But according to him, these statistics do not say anything about people who are officially unbelievers, but they are in fact already part of a genuine Church because “under the influence of supernatural sincerity, they have decided to change their way of life”. This transformation, though invisible, is the result of surrogate prayer. We can also accept the invitation to this surrogate prayer and ask that the mysterious grace, which has already been born in our hearts, be elevated to conversion, to full membership of the visible Church of Christ.

                When I think about it, I see that my profession was also born through proxy prayer. I did not intend to be a priest, and I did enough not to be him. But the grannies in our village had a different idea. I know many people have prayed for my profession. Well their prayer was answered. God has led me so mysteriously that I have gradually, although very reluctant at first, determined to change the direction of my life. Not being them, I am not a priest.

                We also see a substitute prayer in the life of the great saints. Saint John Mary Vianney, patron of the pastors and a great confessor who spent 14 to 16 hours a day confessing, gave some of the greatest sinners a penance. He knew they couldn’t handle it anymore. So he gave them as much as they could carry in their fragility. He repented himself in their place. He decided to do satisfaction for the sins committed. So we can also pray and sacrifice for someone, and even the place of someone, to make it easier for him to convert. Of course, we need to be true to ourselves in this area and not to load ourselves more than we are prepared to handle. Beware of heroism. It happens that when we are moved by the misery of a loved one, we tend to promise mountains-mines and then, when the Lord takes our promises seriously, we will rapidly begin to rebel against the cross that has been burdened upon us. Therefore, it is necessary to start modestly and rather to show God’s willingness – Lord, I am here, I am available. Show how and what I can do. He’ll lead me after that.

                If substitute prayer is effective in such a case, the more effective it is when people voluntarily join it. There have always been different fraternities and communities in the Church, and most of the time there are people around the contemplative order who take on a commitment to pray and thus integrate into the monastery’s family and thus merit the prayers of the whole family. Father Hieronymus says: “From this point of view, it can be assumed that prayer of intercession is fully effective even when the monk is praying for related souls who belong to the same family outside and inside the monastery. For these souls are constantly in deep unity with us, not only regarding the content of our intercession for them, but also regarding our desire to discover God. These souls, who already belong internally to our community, not only do not reject our surrogate prayer for them, but they also continually speak for us. ” This surrogate prayer stems from the following: “The prayer loves the absolute good of God. At the same time, however, he desires that every person in the world personally attain this good once … ” unrepeatable soul ”. So the Church through the Rosary Brains