The Prayers of the Righteous

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  General George Patton found himself in Lorraine, France, in December, 1944.  The weather was rotten.  He wrote to his wife, Beatrice: “There is about four inches of liquid mud over everything and it rains all the time, but not steadily.”  So Patton called up the Chaplain of the Third Army, Fr. James H. O’Neill, and had him compose a prayer for good weather, that Patton ordered be said  by every soldier in the Third Army.  By 14 December, all 250,000 copies of the prayer had been received.  on 23 December the weather broke, and Patton was again able to move his army, and ended up rescuing the 101st Airborne from their encircled siege during the Battle of the Bulge (though, they never have admitted that they needed rescuing).  Fr. James O’Neill was awarded the Bronze Star by General Patton for his prayer.
    St. Peter said that “the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears turned to their prayer.”  If you were an allied army in December 1944, you would certainly say that God heard your prayers, and, because the cause was just, the prayer was answered as General Patton wanted.  Or think about the successor of St. Peter, Pope St. Pius V, who invited Europe to pray the Rosary for the Christian Fleet at Lepanto, and, despite odds against them, they won.  Certainly, we still attribute that victory to prayer, as we celebrate on the day of victory Our Lady, Queen of Victory.  
    There’s also a football story about Lou Holtz and the coach of Boston College during one of their matches.  The coach of Boston College was speaking to Lou before the game, and said, “Well, Lou, I guess we know that, since we’re both Catholic schools, God doesn’t care who wins.”  Lou quipped back, “But His mother does.”  And how about those times when a person prayers for victory, and the team loses.  I remember being at Ford Field, at the time I was Parochial Vicar for St. Thomas Aquinas in East Lansing.  I had traveled with Lansing Catholic’s football team for a rematch against Powers Catholic of epic proportions.  There was a lot of praying on both sides that game.  I was “working the beads” every second for a Lansing Catholic victory.  But yet, at the time to my dismay, Powers Catholic won.  
    While that may seem small, think about the prayers that ascended to God for the Catholic knights fighting to hold on to Jerusalem as the Muslims fought as hard to take it back.  Was keeping Jerusalem safe for Catholics and the true faith not a righteous cause?  Can it simply be attributed to a lack of holiness on the part of those praying?
    Certainly the prayers of the righteous have more effect.  But, perhaps that is because their wills are more in-tune with God’s will, and they know how to pray that God’s will be done.  Think about the missionaries who have asked God for miracles for the conversion of others, and have received miracles.  Or when St. Dominic prayed for bread when his house of young friars had run out of bread, and God miraculously provided bread for them so that they could preach with strength and vigor.  While I was praying hard for Lansing Catholic, I certainly knew, in my mind, that God’s will might be that Lansing Catholic lose, and my first concern was that no one would get seriously injured (and those prayers were answered).  Still, I was hoping that Mary’s intercession would have an effect on us getting the win for which we looked.
    But it’s not quite as simple as: if your prayers get answered, you and/or your cause was righteous; if not, then not.  We seek always to have the mind of God, but we do not always have it.  God’s ways are mysterious because they occur according to His plan and His timing, not ours.  If a sinner calls upon God, and the answer to those prayers are in accord with God’s will, those prayers may get answered exactly as the sinner wants.  If a saint calls upon God, and the answer to those prayers are not in accord with God’s will, those prayers will be answered in a way that a bystander might think was a sign of divine displeasure.      So how should we pray?  Do we stop praying for the small things, like football victories, or nice weather for an outdoor wedding reception?  Do we only pray if we are in a state of grace?  Do we treat the answer we get as a sign of God’s pleasure of displeasure with us?  The secret lies in the prayer our Savior taught us to pray: Thy will be done.  We pray that whatever occurs be that which gives God greatest glory and gives us the greatest holiness, whether it seems like a yes or a no to us.  We pray with great fervor and persistence, as our Lord encourages us in the Gospels, but we leave it up to Him to see if the positive answer to our prayers would help advance His Kingdom more.
    And that also means that we pray for good things, not bad.  Praying in accord with God’s will cannot include harm coming to another.  There was a short-lived custom in Spain in the first millennium (short-lived because it was condemned by local councils) to pray for the death of one’s enemies.  You would pay the priest to offer a requiem Mass for someone who was alive, and hope God would get the hint.  To be clear: that’s not a good way to pray.  While there are examples from the scriptures and the lives of the saints of curses being laid upon other (think of St. Peter condemning Ananias and Sapphira for holding back from what they were supposed to give God), those are rare, and are from those who are especially in tune with the mind of God.  Unless we are at that point, our prayer should be for good, as the Lord commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  
    And, in the end, prayer is an act of trust.  We entrust our petitions to a loving Father, who would never give us a stone if we asked for an egg, and know that whatever He gives us is an act of love and for our benefit, in some way.  So whether we are a chaplain of the Third Army, or a young child praying for a particular present for a birthday, may we seek to be righteous, to know God’s will, and then entrust ourselves and our prayers to the one who loves us and gives us every good gift that we need: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.