Having Holy Boldness in Prayer

The following comes from Msgr. Pope:

There are some who wince at the notion of praying boldly to God, especially if anger or exasperation are part of that boldness. And yet the Bible itself models and counsels that we should include in our prayers the times when we are angry, exasperated, or disappointed in God. The psalms are filled with such prayers and great figures like Moses, David, and Job cry out to God quite plainly, expressing their anger and disappointment. I have written more on that here: A Meditation on the Role of Anger in Prayer.

At any rate, in this brief blog today I offer this example of a prayer of holy boldness from a great Saint of the Church: St. Catherine of Siena. Here is the background: Catherine’s mother, Lapa, lay dying, but Catherine was convinced that Lapa was not yet ready to die, and so she told God as much. The Lord disagreed, but Catherine remained undeterred in her assessment. And now we pick up the story and prayer …

Lapa died, or so it seemed to all the women who stood around her bed. She had refused to confess and receive the last Sacrament. Catherine lay over her mother’s corpse weeping and praying aloud.

O my dear Lord, is this how you keep the promise you once made to me that none in my house should suffer eternal death? You promised me too that you would not take my mother from this world before she could leave it in a state of grace, and here she lies dead, without having confessed or received the Sacrament. My Beloved Savior, I call to you in your great mercy, do not fail me! I will not go alive from your feet until you give me my mother back.

Speechless and overcome, the women around the deathbed saw that life seemed to creep back into Lapa’s body. She breathed and made some slight movement, … After a short time Monna Lapa was quite well again. [Told by her confessor, Blessed Fr. Raimondo, and inscribed in the Biography Catherine of Sienna by Sigrid Undset, pp 94-95].

And so here is the image of a saint at prayer: reverent but bold, seemingly unwilling to take “no” for an answer. Surely, on account of her usual and deep reverence, Catherine was allowed a bit more leeway than many of us; but do not doubt that God is often listening for us sinners to pray with a little conviction and intensity!

Somehow, too, it reminds me of a place called Cana, where the Mother of Jesus said, “They have no more wine.”  And though Jesus seemed unwilling, I am convinced that Mary gave him a look that only a mother could, a look that wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.  And the next thing you know, Jesus is making dozens of gallons of the best wine imaginable!

Are you praying with me, Church? Really praying? There is a place for boldness in prayer, not a boldness that loses all reverence, but a boldness nonetheless.

Mother Angelica’s Mad Method

The following comes from Fr. Longenecker:

After I became a Catholic, I waited 10 years before I finally received the gift of ordination. During my time as a layman I often wondered how I was supposed to serve the church. Then a visit from a wise older Catholic man named Francis pointed the way. He listened to my frustrations and then smiled and said, “Dwight, in the Catholic Church, don’t wait to be asked and don’t wait to be thanked. Just get on and do what you can with the gifts you have been given. The Lord will open the doors.” So I began writing because that was something I could do, and in doing so I found a way to serve God and his church.

This was the way of Mother Angelica. She did what she could with what she had, and God blessed her efforts and opened the doors. Her success could be called “Mother Angelica’s Mad Method” and it has particular principles from which the whole Church can learn.

The first principle of Mother Angelica’s Mad Method is that she began with prayer, not a master plan. The worldly way of accomplishing something is to determine the overall object, work out the strategy, set goals and establish a schedule to reach those goals. Mother Angelica’s Mad Method is similar to Pope Francis’ exhortation to “go out and make a mess.” She didn’t have a master plan. She had a relationship with the Master, and that was the foundation of her mad method.

The second principle of Mother Angelica’s Method is that she began with service, not buildings. Time and again in church life I see priests, prelates and people make big plans that involve bricks and mortar, staff and salaries.

Not long ago I was visiting a northern city and heard the story of a new multimillion dollar Catholic high school that was struggling for enrollment. Meanwhile, a private Catholic high school with a classical curriculum that met in a converted warehouse was bursting at the seams. The bishop had made the mistake of constructing a building before he constructed the ministry. “If you build it they will come”? Not necessarily.

Mother Angelica didn’t set out to have an international Catholic media company with posh offices in an affluent metropolitan area. She just started making her own TV show with second-hand equipment in her garage in the backwoods of Alabama. She began with ministry, and the bricks and mortar followed.

Mother Angelica’s third principle concerns money. She did not start with a huge capital campaign to raise the money to establish an international Catholic media empire. She didn’t have gala dinners with Catholic high-rollers who had to stump up for an army of highly paid directors, producers, financial advisors and administrative staff. She just got on with doing what she could do. She didn’t wait to be asked and didn’t wait to be thanked, and the Good Lord provided the money as it was needed.

Mother Angelica’s Mad Method is what I call entrepreneurial Catholicism. This mad method is very often not only Spirit led, but it is in a healthily subversive relationship with the hierarchy of the church. In a prophetic way, the entrepreneurial Catholic does God’s work without running to the priest or bishop all the time for approval.

Read the rest here.