Philippians 4:6

The story is told one of Napoleon general’s, Massena, who with his army of 18,000 soldiers besieged an Austrian town that had no defenses whatsoever. The town council met to discuss how to surrender. Just then an elderly man, the dean of the town church, reminded the council that it was Easter and suggested that they hold the usual Easter services and put the problem in God’s hands. The council took his advice, went to the church and rang the church bell to assemble the townsfolk for worship. Napoleon’s forces heard the joyful ringing of the bells and concluded that the Austrian forces had arrived to rescue the town. Immediately, they broke camp and beat a retreat, and the town was saved.

Faith in God’s protection affects how we face the problems of life. Whereas people who have no faith usually respond to life’s problems with worry, people of faith respond to life’s problems with prayer. As we can see in the story of the Austrian town, worry only makes us surrender in weakness to the challenges facing us. Prayer, on the other hand, enables us to trust our all-powerful Father, who is able to draw us out of the pit into which we have sunk, ever if it should take a miracle to do so.

Prayer is not simply reading a shopping list of our needs before God. It is thanking God for the blessings we enjoy and presenting our needs to God. Much of what passes for prayer is too self-centered. Prayer should be God-centered, just as Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” It has been said that “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.” Prayer offers an answer to anxiety for it enables us to let go, and put our cares in God’s hands.

Prayer is not about what we do on bended knee. It is about the way we think all day long. A person of prayer is a person who thinks always about what is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. Do not spend your time thinking about your needs, your failures or what is wrong with the world. Meditate on the beautiful words of scripture, and try to apply them to your life. This is the kind of prayer that comes from the heart when we ponder the word of God, and practice it.

Fr. Hugh Duffy