PRAY FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

Most of the time, in most occasions, when push comes to shove and we know we have to do something to help someone in need, our last and sometimes only resort is to pray for that person. We are powerless to help in any other way. We watch the news on television or read in the paper and see people the world over in dire need for food, clothing, shelter, a safe place to live – the list is endless. We would like to help but there is little or nothing we can do except pray for them. Hopefully we do.

More often than not, if you are like me, the prayer may be a quick one and we move on. Okay, that’s better than no prayer at all. At least we have recognized that people are in need and that we should pray for them and pray that somehow in some way those needs will begin to be met by those who are in place to do so. We hope so.

When the needs of others are brought to our attention, we do tend to want to do what we can to alleviate them, prayer, again, always being one way to do so. But the truth is that every one of us is in need. We may not be hungry or naked or in prison, we may not have serious faith issues or be in mourning or dealing with being unjustly hurt, but we are in need anyway. Everyone is: no exceptions.

If we simply stand on our front porch and look around our neighborhood, even if we do not know our neighbors personally, we can be sure that they are in need in some way. No one’s life is free from worry, care, frustration, doubt. Every one of us has issues we are dealing with that take away peace of mind and heart. Most of the time most of us deal with those issues in the silence of our hearts. We do not share them with anyone, sometimes not even with the ones we love the most. And so we go on from day to day struggling to take each day at a time, making it from one day to the next.

That is not to say that we are all overburdened and weighed down with cares and concerns. It is to say that at times we just are. It is also to say that sometimes all we need to know is that there are those who are praying for us. In fact, we do not even have to know that there are those who care so much about us that they pray for us even if they do not know our needs.

We pray because we believe in the power of prayer. We do not understand that power. We only know that it exists because we have been helped by that power through our own prayers and the prayers of others. Everyone alive needs prayers and everyone alive needs to pray for one another.

What about praying for the dead? I think it is about remembering the dead and knowing that they are praying for us. They don’t need our prayers. We need theirs. What we need most of all when it comes to the issue of prayer is to become more and more aware each day that everyone we meet needs our prayers just as we need theirs.