In the wake of the shooting Saturday, as the country continues to struggle through this presidential election year, let’s commit to daily including the needs and good intentions of the whole United States of America in our prayers.
By Chris Sparks
I generally dislike presidential election years. They’re always so fraught with terrible ads on TV, in the newspapers, on all forms of media and social media, from all sides.
So many Catholics seem to sit out the election, or simply ignore all guidance from the U.S. bishops. So many campaigns attempt to convince Catholics that fundamental issues of human life, dignity, and rights are less important than “making your vote count.”
Fever pitch
Both major parties have for decades made it a habit to present their candidate as though he or she is the Second Coming of Christ (which of course means they’re offering us an anti-Christ), and treated the opposing candidate as though they’re the anti-Christ, whose victory would mean the end of the world. Clearly, we’re still here; clearly, presidential elections, while important, have not been the sort of world-ending event we were promised.
It’s miserable to watch. It’s generally been an exercise in working ordinary people up to a fever pitch and then expecting everything to sort of recede into normality once a winner is chosen.
Last Saturday’s terrible assassination attempt against former President Trump was a reminder of the flaws in that method of politics. Thank God former President Trump survived the attack.
Remember to pray for the repose of the soul of Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who died shielding his family. Pray also for the comfort of his family, for everyone who was present — actually, let’s be realistic. We clearly need to be praying for our country, our whole country, top to bottom, red and blue, left and right.
Living Eucharistic faith
We in the Marian Family have been blessed by Divine Providence with an extraordinary array of spiritual gifts. The National Eucharistic Revival, with the Congress taking place this week in Indianapolis launching the 2024-25 Year of Mission leading into the universal 2025 Jubilee of Hope, is going on right now.
Jesus is fully present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Most Holy Eucharist. Every Mass, He is there, drawn down from Heaven by the words of the priest, done in obedience to God. Every tabernacle in this country contains God Almighty. He is living with us, dwelling alongside us.
Do we receive Him as often as we can in Holy Communion? Do we make Holy Hours with Him? We tend to make time for the rich, the powerful, the beautiful, or for those who love us. Do we have time to spend with the Creator of all riches, the Power from whom all powers take their strength, the Beauty that gives all lovely things their loveliness, or for Love Himself?
God is with us. Are we with Him? Do we bring our troubles to Him, waiting for us in the Eucharist, or do we simply live our lives as though we are members of the modern world, assuming God is distant or nonexistent, silent, at best the God of the Enlightenment, and at worst a fairy tale? No! God is waiting for you in your parish’s tabernacle right now!
Do we feel abandoned by God, wondering where He is in our hardships, praying desperately to try to get His attention, wishing that He’d be closer to us, but feeling like God left the earth 2000 years ago and hasn’t been heard from since? No! He speaks to us through the Scriptures, through the clergy, through our neighbors, through the poor, through the works of His hands, through the lives of the saints and the history of our Church. He will whisper in every human heart—that’s why Christian discernment is so important, as Fr. Chris Alar, MIC, explained.
Worship and prayer matters. Prayer has true power, though not the sort that behaves in humanly predictable ways.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened (Mt 7:7-8).
Deploy devotions!
Alongside the infinite grace available through the Sacraments, the Marian Fathers have been entrusted by the Church and Divine Providence with promoting certain devotions to which the most exceptional sorts of promises have been attached. Consider the Rosary, for instance. The list of promises is amazing, but just focus on a few here:
• What you ask through my rosary, you shall obtain.
• Those who propagate my rosary will be aided by me in all their necessities.
• I have obtained from my Son that all the members of the Rosary Confraternity shall have as their intercessors, in life and in death, the entire celestial court.
If these promises were for sale, none of us could afford them. These are priceless promises, promises of graces beyond the dreams of patriarchs and prophets. We have them for the price of spending 20 minutes a day praying the Rosary.
Or consider the promises attached to praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet. All the promises are amazing, but focus on these:
• I desire to grant unimaginable graces to those souls who trust in My mercy (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 687).
• Through the Chaplet you will obtain everything, if what you ask for is compatible with My will. (Diary, 1731).
Even as our fellow Americans in the federal and local security apparatus investigate the terrible shooting on Saturday and work to keep us all safe and free during this election year, we members of the Marian Family can make a real contribution to the defeat of evil with our prayers. Why? Because Heaven promised. Because our Lord and Our Lady are trustworthy. Because if we can manage to have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains (see Mt 17:20). After all, as Jesus told St. Faustina:
[M]any souls … are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul. If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment. Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasure for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall My judgment with their mercy (Diary, 1317).
Pray, patriots!
In the wake of the shooting Saturday, as the country continues to struggle through this presidential election year, let’s commit to daily including the needs and good intentions of the whole United States of America in our prayers.
Let’s pray for peace in the world, as Our Lady of the Rosary asked for at Fatima. Let’s pray for the salvation, conversion, and sanctification of both major party candidates, all their families, friends, enemies, supporters, and everyone involved in their campaigns. Let’s ask Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the U.S.A., to intercede with fervor and power for the true needs and good intentions of the country, of all her citizens, and for everyone affected by the civic health and deeds of the greatest nation on earth.
Let’s ask for all our North American saints and blesseds to pray for us in this election year, helping us live up to their heroic and holy legacy.
And let us persist in the method of Bl. George Matulaitis, whose slogan was “Overcome evil with good (see Rom 12:21).
Pray for me, that I may practice what I preach. I’ll pray for you.
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