Your Prayer Matters

“Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God’s heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with your heart. In fact on certain occasions you should only speak to Him with your heart.” – Saint Padre Pio

I had another dream on Wednesday night.  In the dream I was on my knees praying the Rosary.  Then God lifted the veil and he showed me what my prayer was doing.  I saw myself holding a sword, slaying demons.  Then I awoke remembering an old journal I had.  God wanted me to remember it.

This journal was one that I kept long before I started journaling letters to God.  It was simply a journal of my petitions for others.  The petitions in them were huge.  A sampling of some of the prayers;

For my friend who is infertile to have children.

For my relative who is infertile to have children.

For my relative who is an alcoholic to recover.

I could go on.  But you get the idea.  These were no small petitions.  And one by one I realized all had been answered.  My friend was able to conceive biological children.  My relative was able to adopt.  My other relative went in to rehab and has been a recovered alcoholic for years.  As I looked at each petition, there was only one that wasn’t answered the way I would have wanted.  That one, where I asked for healing for a friend, ended in earthly death.  But even with that, God whispered, “she is healed.”  

I realized how short sighted I am.  I had written them down, prayed them for awhile, and forgotten about them and moved on to the next thing that seemed an anxiety in my life or the life of others.  It wasn’t until later on my journey that gratitude became part of my prayer.  Gratitude even in suffering.  For the infertile couples who had to wait, the gratefulness for children is all the sweeter.  We in our impatience want what we want now, but God has a larger plan, that when we pray and trust it, brings us joy beyond measure.

There is something else I want to point out too.  I truly believe God does want to prosper us and not to harm us.  He is a good Father and we are sons and daughters of a King.  Prayer is how we come into union with Him.  In our weakness we pray simply not to suffer, but if our prayer becomes one of uniting our will to His will, life becomes more joyful and filled with gratitude.  We must pray with our hearts.  It slays demons.

I noticed people either do not believe in the demonic, or if they do they are terrified of it. I know for a fact we have an active entity seeking to destroy us.  I have witnessed it.  God is not the one who wills all the evil we see.  We must realize the devil is real, but in this realization we must not fear.  You often see depictions in movies of a person shaking while they hold a cross when confronted with a demon.  The demon throws the cross, because it is painful for the demon to touch, and he just wants it out of the way, and then the demon goes after the person who is afraid.  But I say NO to that.  We must get angry at the demons.  We must have a Holy Hatred.

We should be totally angry, and have active enmity at the devil that he came to steal, kill and destroy.  And we can claim our victory in Jesus Christ and tell that demon to go straight back to hell.  Demons of depression, fear, anxiety, rage, bitterness, they have no right inside your domain, your circle of authority.   But one thing to remember is the demons won’t leave unless you have forgiven.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

If we can forgive others all offenses the way Jesus forgave us, we can, in His Holy Name command demons to leave us alone.  When we pray and unite our will with God’s will, He gives us the grace to forgive and love like he does, to see people the way He does.  And this, this is what makes us WARRIORS.  We are the Church Militant and our mission, to love, to forgive, and to put the devil under our own feet in the name of Jesus.

The Rosary is particularly powerful in this regard if it is prayed from the heart because it shows us the uniting of Mary with her Son.  I came across a picture by Francisco Laporta Valor called "Rosa Mistica" or "Mystical Rose" that depicts Mary in prayer.  Look it up and take a look at that look on her face.  Her hands are folded in prayer, but that look is not one of passivity.  That is a look reserved for Satan, that says, “DON’T MESS WITH ME OR MY CHILDREN, I WILL CRUSH YOUR HEAD.”  

You see Mary, by uniting her will with God, KNOWS WHO THE ENEMY IS.  It isn’t other people, whom we must love, but it is Satan, the liar and the accuser.

When I was on my retreat a couple of weeks ago, I went on a walk in the woods.  I came across a statue of Mary standing on the serpent;

I lifted my own foot and stepped on his head too.  For Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), yet we see the devils works everywhere.  But I say, in my life, I unite my will to Christ.  I step on your head, you filthy serpent, and allow Christ to lift me out of weakness into perfection, through prayer, sacraments, forgiveness and holy hatred of the one who came to destroy.  It is only in relying on my Savior that I can be lifted.  I cannot save myself.  Prayer unites me to Him who alone is good.  And this unites us with each other, who understand this, making the Communion of Saints truly a Mystical Body of Christ.

“Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for “he subjected everything under his feet.” But when it says that everything has been subjected, it is clear that it excludes the one who subjected everything to him.When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will [also] be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 24-28