Storm the Heavens!

When a dear friend writes and asks me to pray and I promise to storm the heavens, I feel a little foolish. After all, how can I storm the heavens when I scarcely even know how to pray? How can I truly intercede for others?

Scarcely do I begin to question when I pick up a copy of Restoration, the newspaper from Madonna House.  It was the January issue which I had not yet had a chance to read. The theme for the month was prayer and the title of the first article was Prayer that Pierces the Clouds. How fitting that I should have mislaid this issue of Restoration until it should speak even deeper to my heart!

Although this issue of Restoration, like every issue, held many beautiful thoughts and stories, it was the section known as The Pope's Corner that I would like to quote:

But we need to pray from our hearts. A courageous prayer that struggles for that miracle. Not like those prayers of courtesy: Ah, I will pray for you! Followed by one Our Father, a Hail Mary and then I forget.

No! It takes a brave prayer like that of Abraham who was struggling with the Lord to save the city, like that of Moses who prayed, his hands held high when he grew weary.

Prayer works miracles, but we must believe it.

What I learn from these words of Pope Francis is that in order to storm the heavens, in order to intercede for another, we cannot treat this interchange with our Lord as a matter of manners where we ask nicely and make sure to say please. No, rather we must implore Him like the widow persisting in beseeching the judge to hear her. We must not throw out a simple gesture of prayer, but stand up bravely like Horatius at the bridge, defending the entire city alone. We must wrestle in prayer like Jacob who found out he had wrestled with God.