He who truly loves his neighbor and cannot efficaciously assist him, should strive at least to relieve and help him by his prayers.
~ St. Teresa of Jesus
I’m living by these words of St Teresa of Avila this week. A dear old friend told me earlier in the week that doctors had found a growth in her spine. Just a month away from a happy retirement, she gets this news – and yet, finds the heart to offer up Masses for my daughter who’s sitting for her finals. Earlier too, someone on a Catholic forum went through the sudden hospitalisation of his brother and later, lost him. Today, he wrote these pain-filled words, I’ve had five days in the garden of Gethsemane. I did not think it was possible to suffer so much and live.
Tears gather in my throat. Oh, how much some in the world are suffering. I have my relatively good health and so many things to be happy about. Yet, not one of it can be shared with those walking the path of burning coals now.
Then, appears St Teresa, throwing open the window to her home as I go by,
If you cannot efficaciously assist him, at least pray for him.
What a mercy this recourse to prayer is. Where would anyone be without this grace of knowing we have somewhere to send broken hearts and tears to, somewhere to channel our own fears and sufferings, and through that transform it into love? How transformed this world would be if it only knew of this blessing availed to mankind when the rain pours in its varied falls.
For great, great indeed is this grace of prayer.
writingonmyheart 