Marian Helper • Winter 2023-24 • Marian.org 9 By Chris Sparks First, Ukraine and Russia. Now Israel and Palestine. Such terrible suffering. Such awful destruction and violence. So many innocent civilians put in harm’s way by history, or by greed, or by political maneuvering. What, in the end, can we do? The foundation I know people are so sick and tired of empty words that, whenever someone suggests prayer these days, they are tempted to scorn and scoff. And indeed, prayer has been abused by those who wanted to avoid having to act. It’s an easy thing to promise someone that they’ll be in your prayers. It’s harder to fulfill your commitment. Harder still to abide in the patient perseverance that world-changing prayer can often require of us. Hard to watch and wait and pray seriously, to make prayer a habit and a way of life rather than a verbal shield to deflect having to think about tragedy or take action to prevent the next such tragedy. Prayer is the foundation of all other efforts, though. Real prayer, honest prayer, persistent prayer makes possible the victory of goodness in the world because God is a gentleman; with divine generosity and courtesy, He never forces or compels a positive response from His creatures. God is the source of free will because God is love and truth, and so will be pleased by nothing less than true love from persons made in His image and likeness. Evil is the consequence of free will being misused. The fall of the devil with his angels contributed to the fall of our first parents. Those falls set the stage for everything else — for human beings born with an inclination to evil; for physical illness and death; for a world at war with us, and neighbors turning on neighbors, and brothers stabbing each other in the back. Those falls disrupted the ordinary easy transparency of the created world to the light of Heaven. By Christ’s coming, His self-sacrifice, the Sacraments, and grace, and prayer, the world once again invites in that light of Heaven. The sanctity of the saints leaves traces on the world around them — that’s why we have relics, and stories of extraordinary miracles, and works of mercy beyond what human nature alone can achieve. It’s that same light of Heaven that we welcome into the world with our prayers, and when we offer up suffering. The light of Christ courses through the Body like sap from a vine to the branches (see Jn 15:5), and wherever it’s allowed to shine out into the world, good things happen. Path to peace The path to peace has been laid out for us again and again across the last century, in the teachings of the popes and Vatican II, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, and in apparitions to saints and mystics. Continue to say the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, to obtain the peace of the world and the end of the war, because only she can obtain it — Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal, July 13, 1917. And how would Our Lady obtain peace in the world? We do know the ultimate end of all her efforts: bringing us all back to Jesus, the Divine Mercy Incarnate. Jesus said to St. Faustina: “Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy” (Diary, 300; see also 699). Please pray for peace. If you can, pray the Rosary every day for peace in the world. A chapter of the Rosary Confraternity has just been established at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, with some extraordinary promises for membership. Please enroll! Details at left. The Rosary itself has some incredible promises attached to it. If you haven’t already decided to take it up, please let the terrible events of these past weeks be your encouragement. PEACE IN OUR TIME?
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