Pray alone and you pray as one; Pray collectively and all pray as one body.

Pray alone and you pray as one; Pray collectively and all pray as one body.

A person becomes violently ill and one friend offers prayer for their recovery.  God hears and works to answer the request.  However, many persons pray to God as a body of one and God cannot miss the collective requests.  

Someone asked if God responds any quicker from a group, and especially if it becomes a daily forum.  For many years, St. Monica prayed continuously for her son Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, to turn away from following an adverse religion to Catholicism. 

Jesus told a parable about the widow who kept after a certain judge to see in her favor and after many days of her requesting help from the judge, because of her persistence, voted in her favor.  Jesus said, “Hear what the unrighteous  judge says, “will not God vindicate his elect, who cries out to him day and night?  Will he delay long over them?  I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily.”  (Lk. 18: 1 - 8).

However, the constant prayers from St. Monica took a long time before it was answered.  Somewhere earlier the answer to prayers might be yes, not now, or no.  Monica's prayer for Augustine was not now.  There were issues that Augustine had to work through before the attraction to Catholicism would work for him.

St. Paul was plagued with a thorn given him in the flesh and he asked the Lord to remove it.  Three times he prayed for its removal and Jesus responded with, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  (2 Cor. 12: 7 -9).  The answer here was no.

I know a woman who had an alcoholic husband and in spite of daily Masses and much prayer he died an alcoholic.  The answer was no.  Again free will becomes a deterrent to God interfering with many problems.  It isn’t that God doesn’t desire healing from an addictive problem, the person in question blocks any help God could use because he will not interfere with our free will.  The answer is no.

When I was in the ICU from covid for 12 days a cadre of many family and friends never gave up on barraging heaven for my recovery.  After release from the hospital the post-recovery appeared as though my malady was not that severe.  The answer to prayer was yes.

It appears to be a contradiction that more people praying will get a positive answer and maybe faster.  Or one person praying to God may take longer or a  response of no.  When we pray, do so with assurance God hears each one and as long as the prayer is not to harm others or destroy a situation that goes against the will of God there will be an answer.  

Ralph B. Hathaway