This time of lockdown has given me more time to reflect. I’ve had time to think about various events and people in my life, and I've been reminded to pray for them. Praying for others is something beautiful we can do at this time, where we can't do many of the things we would normally do. 

Intercessory Prayer is such a powerful form of prayer. We can see its power in the scriptures, where a paralytic man is brought to Jesus by his friends, and they ask Jesus to help him. Matthew’s Gospel (9:1-8) says very clearly that Jesus sees the faith of those who brought their friend to him, and then Jesus heals and forgives him, and the man comes to a new life.

There may be many of us praying for people now or for who we have prayed for in the past, who we want to come to the Lord, or who we want to come to the fullness of life in Jesus. Maybe we've lost hope at times, but this Gospel reading is a reminder to never lose hope and to persevere in our prayer.

There’s a story of a man who was badly injured during World War One. He was a German man taken to a hospital in France and was treated by a Catholic nun. As she started to tend to his wounds, she knew that he wouldn't live for long, so she suggested that she could call a priest and he could make his confession before he died. Immediately the man refused and denied having anything to do with Jesus or the faith and to just leave him alone. The nun replied that she would pray for him, to which he responded by telling her not to pray for him, that she’d give up soon because he will never change. The nun then said she would never lose hope because for the last 16 years she has been praying for someone she was asked to pray for by the countess her mother had worked for. The countess had a son who had strayed from the faith, and she asked that he be prayed for, knowing that her mother had a daughter who was a nun, and she has been praying for this man ever since. The injured man asked the nun if she knew him, to which she replied that she didn’t. The man then asked if her mother's name was Catherine and when she said ‘yes’, he replied that the man who she’d been praying for all these years was him. He was so moved by the situation that he apologised to her and asked if she could please call for the priest. The man made a beautiful confession and turned his life around. He survived the injury and then went on to practise his faith in a very deep way.

Like this nun, many of us might be praying for family members or loved ones but haven’t seen any change. This story, however, is a clear example of how Jesus asks us to pray in faith. We will see that our prayers will not go unanswered if we turn to the Lord and pray that people will be healed and experience a conversion and newness of life. 

So, let’s take time to listen to who Jesus is placing on our heart to pray for at this time, and spend some of this lockdown in praying for others.

NOTE: The St Declan’s Intercessory Prayer Team will pray with you for any needs you may have. Contact them here.