“I’ll pray for you.”
“We’ll be thinking of you.”
“You’re in my thoughts and prayers.”
We often throw these words out there in big moments - times of grief, transition, challenge, opportunity, etc. People have surely used them in the wake of the recent attack in London. I think we’re usually motivated by the right things. We feel a very human sentiment to do something supportive and express positivity and love to another person.
I often wonder what exactly different people mean when they say these things. I think when you hear it from a news anchor, reporter, or interviewer, it’s certainly more genericized and less deeply rooted. I imagine that when it comes from someone who doesn’t believe or God or practice a religion, it’s more so a sharing of emotional reaction. And I hope when it comes from someone who believes in God, that it is an authentic and true intention to pray directly for someone or something, namely that God’s will be done for them.
I know that when I say “I’ll pray for you,” it involves stopping to say a short prayer - eyes closed, silently in my head and heart, in my car or at my desk - and writing their name on my family’s daily intentions board. I know that for one guy I met at a retreat, it meant stopping whatever he was doing and praying for the person right there and then, out loud; if it was fitting to offer prayers in conversation or for another person to ask for his prayers, then he endeavored to actualize that prayer in that moment.
I think that the beauty and, dare I say, the efficacy of prayer comes in its connection to the transcendent, supernatural reality of God. Whether one perceives God as the One Lord, as a higher power or energy force, or as something indescribable or unknowable, these expressions of well wishes, of hope, of support, of solidarity, of interpersonal love, find sustenance and magnitude when they flow through the boundless love of God, who reaches all people in all places.1
As my wife moved through pregnancy and then labor and delivery, many people offered their prayers to us. Through Facebook, text messages, phone calls, and conversations, so many people sent their blessings to our family. I don’t know that one can ever fully acknowledge and identify the fullness of grace in the moment it is present, but I know that God’s grace embraced us during a crucial time. It was beautiful to see the power of prayer fueling my wife and our daughter through the difficulties of labor.
I think as Catholics, our piety can sometimes shy away from praying out loud with any kind of spontaneity. We are definitely more comfortable in the beauty of liturgical structure and with prayers and blessings that are more predictable and true to the form our our Tradition and its worship.2 And here, I think the classic prayers, those tried and true words that we know my rote memory, become the words that lend description to the realities in our heart, especially when we may not know how to pray or what to say.
So as labor and delivery unfolded, it was beautiful to be in a Catholic hospital where no one needed to worry about wearing their faith on their sleeve.
Our nurse who was with us for the toughest middle stretch of my wife’s labor openly shared that she prays Hail Mary’s under her breath as difficult moments unfold for her patients, including in those hardest moments for my wife, Katherine.
Our nurse midwife, as the pains of Katherine’s labor peaked, sat on the bed beside Katherine and held her as she prayed over her. With that physical touch of love, she prayed extemporaneously toward a Hail Mary and asked Mary’s intercession. It was one mother asking prayer of another mother for a new mother.3
As we neared the birth of our daughter, my mother-in-law leaned over her daughter and echoed those some prayers quietly.
As I sat beside Katherine just as our daughter was being born, I whispered a gentle Glory Be into her ear. Thinking of the solemn yet heartfelt monks who so earnestly frame their lives in that prayer,4 I instinctively felt that everything in this amazing moment with its wild emotions must also be for the glory of God.
Our daughter, Lucy Karen Masterton, was born just before Saturday turned to Sunday, and we spent our Sunday in the hospital room enjoying our first hours with our daughter. In the afternoon, I called the chaplain to ask for communion, and the kind old priest visited us with the Eucharist and offered a first blessing to Lucy.
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| Lucy Karen Masterton born March 18, 2017 - 8 lbs. 15 oz., 20 inches |
So to all of you who have been praying for us:
First, please don’t stop. Please continue to pray for us, especially that we may continue to strive to do God’s will in answering our calls as wife and husband and mother and father.
Secondly, thank you. You have fueled our family in the growth of love and the building of the Kingdom.
1 I especially relished this transcendent reality in college, when I had friends all around the world. I remember praying at Adoration for friends on multiple continents in several different countries and finding deep consolation in the boundless reach of God’s love to everyone everywhere.↩
2 This is a gift I have witnessed in friends who are evangelical Christians. They quite comfortably pray out loud, spontaneously, and passionately. Sometimes, the prayers can feel a bit rambly, but the heartfelt passion of it is beautiful. Also, the word “Lord” becomes like “umm” sometimes, and it creates this unique cadence to praying out loud.↩
3 Additionally, both this nurse midwife and another midwife who were both with us are named Mary.↩
4 In college, my choir went on retreat to the Abbey of Gethsemani, where we prayed and sang the Liturgy of the Hours with the monks. Their constant use of the Glory Be becomes the heartbeat to the communal prayer.↩
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