Against The Prayer Mockers
The statements being made by some prominent Leftist politicians in the wake of the school shooting in Minneapolis are outright satanic. Joy Pullmann wrote a very good essay expounding on that at The Federalist.
We wanted to focus on a smaller part of that phenomenon she wrote about, the mocking of prayer as something weak and ineffectual. The Church Fathers, who are masters of the art of prayer, who have experienced the richness of its depths, universally declare the opposite:
“This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” [Matthew 17:14-23]
If this kind goes out by the prayer and fasting of another person, then it is even less able to enter one who fasts and prays.
What protection!
Although there are a slew of demons and all the air is packed with them, they cannot do anything to one who is protected by prayer and fasting.
For a believer there is nothing terrifying here, because near a God-fearing man demons only busy themselves, but they do not have any power over him. A sober man of prayer shoots arrows against them, and they stay far away from him, not daring to approach, and fearing the defeat which they have already experienced.
The objection of course is that prayer did not protect the students at the school in Minneapolis. But this touches on the mystery of human freedom. God does not restrain the free will of men and women; He allows us to choose good or evil for ourselves. The prayers and worship at the Annunciation Catholic School could have guided the shooter Robert Westman to virtue, but he rejected the good things offered to him and chose to befriend Satan instead, chose to become a murderer. This is reminiscent of Judas the Traitor, who lived nearly every day with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself for three years. How could that not have protected him irrevocably from demonic influence? But because of Judas’s own free will, he allied himself with the Pharisees and plotted the murder of his All-Good Master.
There is an assumption about prayer implicit in such objections, that it is little more than magic, i.e., a way to quickly accomplish the will of man in the world. That is a tremendous misunderstanding. The main purpose of prayer is the accomplishment of God’s will in the world (‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,’ as we say in the Lord’s Prayer). That can only happen when we deny our own corrupted, fallen will and cooperate fully with God. Disobedience of God, self-will, acts of evil: Each of them thwart God’s good plans for the world.
But the Holy Trinity, because He is All-Good, is not idle in the face of this resistance. He is constantly using the evil deeds of man and the demons to bring about salvation and healing for us; He transforms evil acts into blessings for the cosmos. Christ again is the supreme example of this: He died a cruel death upon the Holy Cross, an apparent victory for the forces of evil. But through His death, the most heinous act of murder and blasphemy that could be committed by men, and His resurrection, death itself was destroyed, the captives of hades were freed, the gates of Paradise were opened to us once again, and all of mankind will be resurrected at the end of time. In the fulness of time, we may rightly expect good things to come from the sorrowful events in Minneapolis as well.
St Nikolai Velimirovich elaborates on this theme, writing poetically about why hardships should be seen as blessings:
Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have.
Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.
Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.
. . . Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of your garment.
Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:
so that my fleeing to You may have no return;
so that all hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs;
so that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;
so that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins, arrogance and anger;
so that I might amass all my treasure in heaven;
ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.
Those who berate God so angrily for allowing evils like this school shooting to occur do so partly because they see this world as their only chance at living. They have little thought of the afterlife, of heaven or hell. They want life here to be Paradise. But that is not what this life is for. It is an arena for struggle, a preparation, a time for us to adorn ourselves with virtues, to purge out corruption, to purify our hearts so that they will be able to experience God’s Grace, both in this life and in the life to come, as exceedingly pleasant Light and not as a painful Fire. Sometimes it is necessary for the Lord, the Great Physician, to use harsh medicines to heal us of our deluded view of this present world and life within it. He therefore allows certain hardships to befall us: a difficult illness, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, betrayal by a friend. Those who lack this eternal dimension in their perspective will naturally rail against God whenever something seemingly bad happens.
The world is a very complex place, the clashing of millions upon millions of competing and divergent wills: of men and women, of demons and angels, of God Himself. Why do certain events occur? Our limited, sinful minds are unable to plumb those depths. It is arrogant of us to claim to know too much in that regard. Better for us to follow the wisdom of the ages and simply rest in God, trusting in His Providence like so many generations of Christians before us have, even those who went through the fierce trials of persecution.
We can banish those kinds of arrogant thoughts by focusing on the reality of the world to come, a reality made manifest through prayer, which St Sophrony of Essex expresses beautifully:
…the most important miracle to be sought for in prayer is the union of our whole being with God – ‘that good part, which shall not be taken away’ (Luke 10:42) from us by death. Our attention should be focused on our resurrection in God as the ultimate meaning of our appearance in the world. Love towards Christ, filling the whole man, works a radical change in us … Christ united in Himself God and man, and through Him we have access to the Father. Archimandrite Sophrony (His Life is Mine: Part 2, Chapter 1; SVS Press pg. 109)
. . . Through prayer we enter into Divine life; and God praying in us is uncreated life permeating us. Archimandrite Sophrony (His Life is Mine, Chapter 8; SVS press pg. 66)
The blessings of prayer are beyond telling for those who approach it with the right mindset:
…a single raising of your mind to God, and a single humble genuflexion to His glory and in His honor has infinitely more value than all the treasures of the world… Lorenzo Scupoli (Unseen Warfare: Chapter 20)
Every man when praying converses with God. Each of us understands how great a thing it is, being man, to converse with God; but I doubt if anyone can express this honor in words, for it is higher even than the station of angels. A man who strives all his life to practice praying and serving God, speedily becomes akin to angels in life, honor, estate, wisdom and understanding.
If you deprive yourself of prayer, it is like taking a fish out of water; for as water means life to a fish, so prayer means life to the soul. .. Prayer is the cause of salvation, the source of immortality, the indestructible wall of the Church, the unassailable fortress, which terrifies the demons and protects us in the work of righteousness (St Tikhon of Zadonsk).
God can do all, and God wills all that is for the salvation of men—if only men pray to Him. By prayer, St. Nonna converted her husband Gregory and her son Gregory (who would become known as the Theologian) to Christianity. By prayer, Monica brought Augustine out of a wayward life, to the path of good works and faith. By prayer, St. Basil converted his teacher Evulios. By prayer, King Hezekiah prolonged his life for fifteen years. By prayer, St. Simeon the Stylite turned back the Persians and Scythians from attacking the land of Greece with an army already prepared. All the stars in the heavens could be more easily counted than all the miracles worked on earth by prayer (St Nikolai Velimirovich, The Prologue from Ochrid, 5 Aug.).
It is almost incomprehensible to see politicians of the United States denigrating such a wonderful treasure – prayer to the Holy Trinity – that would bring so much joy and peace and other blessings to their constituents if they would make use of it. Almost. The presence in the world of Satan and other fallen angels – per Miss Pullmann, Scott McKay, and others – make it all too understandable.
We are indeed living in apocalyptic times, reiterated by yet another holy elder. Worse things should be expected. The Holy Apostle Paul warned us what would come 2,000 years ago. Let’s prepare ourselves as best we can to face them, through prayer, through fasting, through the Holy Eucharist, through the Holy Scriptures, through every other godly means:
[5] Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away (St Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy 3:1-5).
[1] This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
[2] For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
[3] Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
[4] Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
