“Our prayers are with you”

It’s not really surprising to hear a big media personality say that to someone at the end of a news story about tragedy or natural disaster or some emergency situation they’re in, because it’s the most humanitarian expression of care. At other times, that same news network may air all kinds of rhetorical arguments about church/state separation and the place of religion in the public square, and so on…so they don’t realize what they’re saying.

But when people are in dire need, we usually know to say ‘you’re in our thoughts and prayers’. And that’s what they need to hear.

Often, they’ll ask for that. “Please pray for my mother”, or father, sister, brother, child, friend…..I received an email today asking for prayers for the father of a dear friend.

Christians very often have ‘prayer chains’, networks of good people willing to pray to God on behalf of any person or intention sent their way, through email or phone calls or personal request. Happens all the time. Catholics know that as ‘intercessory prayer’, because you’re asking someone to intercede for you in prayer before God. Other Christians who do that very thing, don’t usually understand how or why Catholics call upon “the communion of saints” for intercessory prayer, but it’s the same concept. Saints in heaven, after all, have a good vantage point to ask God for the favor of a healing or deliverance or some other great need.

When the Church elevates a holy man or woman to the altar as a “Blessed”, they leave open the ’cause for canonization’ until a miracle can directly be attributed to the intercession of that future saint. Just look up the miracles of Padre Pio, for example, or the miracles of Lourdes, to see how these things really do happen. The Church is so stringent on the process of investigating miracles, even skeptics are surprised when they look into it to discover how much proof is required, and how quick, complete – and completely unexplainable – a healing must be. Miracles are being investigated involving Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II right now. When verified, their cause for sainthood is moved along toward beatification, and then another miracle attributed to them brings them to canonization by the Church.

Why do I bring all this up? The prayer part has been on my mind lately, as I’m hearing and getting more and more requests lately, and hearing them on television by news folks who normally don’t talk that way, except in these stories of desperate need.

And then this…

I mentioned in a post the other day about big things coming in three’s. Last night, I received a profound request for prayer from a dear friend for her brother Paul, who has just been diagnosed with a serious form of cancer that has spread. Not long ago, it was my cousin Jana. Before that, my husband’s lifelong friend Tom. I’ve never asked this here before, but will now. Please pray for them.

In the case of Paul, his family – a beautiful, loving family who are special friends – has chosen Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati as the intercessor whose help they seek in asking God for a miracle. His life and personality, says his sister, parallel Bl. Pier Giorgio’s so well, he is a natural fit as a ‘patron.’ She sent out that link to Pier Giorgio’s site, and I was really surprised for different reasons…

For about as long as I’ve had this blog, I’ve had a link over on the right to a Pier Giorgio site, though most people don’t know him (or maybe because most people don’t know him). He was chosen to be the patron of the Toronto World Youth Day in 2002, and has great appeal for young adults. My seminarian son really admires him, visited his home in Italy, and sort of followed in his steps last summer when he climbed part of the Swiss Alps, like Pier Giorgio loved to do, and in the same region. Recently, I found a photo of Pier Giorgio that I didn’t remember seeing before….my son must have brought it home from Italy and given it to me. It has been in the center of my desk since I found it.

It’s the exact same photo you’ll see on that site linked above, though I didn’t know that until today. Of all the Pier Giorgio photos out there, I have the one featured there, though I haven’t seen that site. Another surprise. The one I’ve linked here all along is different.

So….go to both of them. Find out more about the humility of prayer, offering it and asking for it.

On behalf of Tom, Jana and Paul, I’m asking for it. And thank you, each and every one.