Prayer: The Most Powerful Weapon

Many of us find ourselves drawn away from prayer. Why? My personal take is that the temptation to abandon prayer largely comes from our subconscious belief that if we are doing good for God we have a good excuse not to pray.

There are many temptations that can lure us away from prayer, even in church. And the effects can be devastating: burnout, anger, and cynicism, combined with a loss of faith, hope, and charity.

I once witnessed Pope St. John Paul II tell ambassadors that “Christians who fail to pray are at-risk Christians.” He’s right: If we don’t cling to God in prayer, we will fall down flat in despair!

While God loves us and desires our love, He doesn’t actually need us. In fact, He created us for our good, not His. Yet despite that, He constantly asks for our prayers because praying profits us for salvation.

Prayer is so important that every one of Christ’s faithful should spend at least 20 minutes a day in quiet prayer; if not, our work will not be His work but only ours.

Early in our marriage, my wife noticed that I was ceasing to be faithful in prayer. So one morning, she grabbed me by the jacket, looked me in the eyes, and said with frank love that I needed to be the rock of our family, and if I didn’t pray, I couldn’t be that!

Today, October 7th, is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, a feast celebrating the naval victory of the Holy League fleet at Lepanto—which in 1571 saved Christian civilization from defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. 

Then-Pope Pius V knew well the tremendous importance of resisting the aggressive expansion of the Ottomans and the consequences of defeat. But he also knew the battle was a spiritual one—so he called on the faithful of Catholic Europe to join him in praying the Rosary for a victory despite the long odds faced by the Holy League. The subsequent Christian victory, obtained through courageous fighting and the powerful intercession of Our Lady, is still widely known today.

The Christians went to battle under a banner bearing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, held in the hand of the great-nephew of the Admiral Andrea Doria. The Mother of God had appeared in Mexico forty years earlier, and a reproduction of her miraculous image was preserved in the cathedral of Genoa, one of the member states of the Holy League.

In other words, an image of the Holy Mother from the New World saved her children in the Old—a lesser-known fact told me by an Augustinian friar, now deceased, who worked in the rooms next to the magnificent mural of the Battle of Lepanto in the Sala Regia of the Vatican.

During my service as a Swiss Guard, I spent many hours gazing up at this mural, commissioned by the pope and painted by Giorgio Vasari in commemoration of the battle. I frequently found myself praying the Holy Rosary (even if in bits and pieces, the Holy Mother of God knows well how to sort them out) with the beads that Pope St. John Paul II once gave me while he was ?walking alone in the Loggia one afternoon.  

When he arrived in my proximity, before I stood to attention, I noticed his Rosary in his hand. I must have stared at it because the Holy Father first passed by me without acknowledging my presence and then, all of a sudden, he stood right in front of me! He looked intently at me with his deep blue eyes and said, “Mario, the Rosary is my favorite prayer, marvelous in its simplicity and profundity. Take these beads and make good use of them.”

That day, I decided to become Our Lady’s soldier too, and I decided to carry those beads at all times. In that moment, I also received the grace of prayer that has never left me—and because of that, I rediscovered the power of the Rosary, a treasure of mercy placed by the Church in the hands of every believer. In the Rosary, Our Lady gave us all of herself. Her life, her works, her privileges, her grace, and her merits are contained in those evangelical paintings offered for our contemplation and carried out harmoniously through the gentle rhythm of the Hail Marys.

Pope St. Pius V knew, long before couriers could have brought the news to Rome, by divine inspiration received while praying the Rosary, that a triumph of the Cross had been won in the Gulf of Patras in western Greece. That victory was announced with joy from the Church of Santa Sabina on the Aventino hill in Rome.

Today, we too need a triumph of the Cross in our families, our workplaces, and our society. 

My dear friends, the Holy Rosary is the most powerful “weapon” of peace for the laity who are called to sanctify the whole world—first by becoming holy and then by shaping their work in light of their faith, letting faith animate every part of the day.

Don’t be ashamed; instead, be Our Lady’s soldier for Christ and the Church. Pray it often; pray it fervently; pray it well.

The post Prayer: The Most Powerful Weapon appeared first on The Daily Signal.