Wednesday, November 2, 2016

The Forces of Change: Prayer and Action

Deacon Tom Writes,
The Forces of Change: Prayer and Action


In today’s reading St. Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray that he and his companions, “be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith”.

St. Paul had reason to be concerned about perverse and wicked people. He knew the history of the Jewish people and was certainly aware of the fate of the seven Maccabees who were arrested, tortured, and killed for their faith. Paul, a man of prayer, asks the community to pray for him and his companions that God will protect them from the perverse and wicked things that people without faith do as he continues his mission to spread the Good News about Jesus.

The question that this account from St. Paul’s life raises for us today is, “Does the evil and wickedness we experience in our world today come only from the hearts and minds and hands of ‘those without faith’”? Unfortunately, no. Discrimination, the exploitation of the poor, the profiteering from the hopelessness and misery of others is a business today and there are many vendors who profit handsomely from these ventures. All we have to do is, “remove the wooden beam from your eye first” (Mt 7:5) in order for us to see how we may participate in the suffering of others by what we do… or what we fail to do.  There are many way in which we, the faithful, contribute to the suffering of so many people around us - people of color, the elderly and vulnerable, the immigrant, the single parents, the homeless and those “working poor” who struggle just to live simple lives. The sad reality is that so much evil and harm is done by people professing to be people of faith; those who fill our churches, temples, and mosques. Insane but true.

St. Paul was able to deal with the evil he experienced spreading the Word for two reasons:  he was a man of prayer, and he was a man of action. Prayer and work. Pray as if everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on us, advice echoed by St. Augustine some 350 years after St. Paul.

If we are ever to have any success in eliminating the racism, poverty, discrimination, and sexism from our society and in the world, we must find the right balance between prayer and action. Prayer is the way we  get things right on the inside, cleanse first the inside of the cup” as Matthew writes, (Mt 23:26) so that the love of God can flow out to others. 

Perhaps this week we can commit some time to daily prayer so that we can come to know our part in brining about the world that God has in mind for us: one without poverty, or war, or hunger; a world of right relationships built on the sure knowledge that God’s abiding love rests upon each and every one of his children.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

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