Dom Brian Gerard Kelly

Through the Eyes of the Little Ones

The well-known Irish Poor Clare nun, Sr Briege McKenna, has a special gift of healing from Our Lord. One day she was praying in a church in Ireland when a man, recognizing her, asked if she would pray that his disabled hand be healed. She said she would and prayed over his hand. He knelt at a distance and suddenly his hand was instantly healed. Excited he went back to her and said: “Sister, that was a powerful prayer! Could you write it out for me?” Not everyone has the charismatic gift of healing as Sr Briege has. Her gift is from the Lord and as with all such gifts they are to be used for the up building of the Church. But everyone may have the gift of prayer. Not everyone receives an instant physical healing as this man did. But we may all receive the gift of the healing of our souls, and this is more important. Every priest has the sacramental gift to forgive sins in confession. But in all cases, it is the Lord who heals, not any individual person on their own.

Our Lord teaches us that we should always pray and not lose heart. Prayer has many effects but here I just mention three. Firstly, prayer strengthens us in our faith. If you think you cannot pray, then tell this to the Lord and you have just prayed! If you think you have no faith, then begin with silence. Find time each day for remaining in silence. Leave the iPhone, earphones, iPad and other such distractions alone and just be on your own. We live in a very noise-filled world with an enormous amount of distractions to fill our imagination. Prayer rises from the silence of our hearts, and this leads to faith. Listen to St Therese of Lisieux: “Pour moi la prière, c’est un élan du coeur, c’est un simple regard jeté vers le Ciel, c’est un cri de reconnaissance et d’amour au sein de l’épreuve comme au sein de la joie;” “For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.” What she says is very simple.  All it requires is practice.

A second aspect of prayer I mention is ‘forgiveness’. Each time we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’. St. Benedict reminds us that we cleanse our souls of faults against one another when we say these words from our heart. Sometimes we find it very difficult to forgive someone who has hurt us deeply. But if we carry about with us the spirit of unforgiveness, we are like the ghost of Marley in Charles Dickens novel A Christmas Carol, who was doomed to wander the earth, carrying about him the chains he forged for himself in his life by his own free will. Unforgiveness can be one such chain. It may be helpful to examine the word itself. In the Irish language, the verb to forgive and the noun for ‘good’ are identical – ‘maith’. Such an association highlights the meaning of forgiving with giving a good to the other. In French, ‘pardonner’, from the word ‘pardon’, has a meaning to ‘give as a gift’. The English word ‘forgive’ also has this meaning of ‘giving’. In Latin, although not used in the Lord’s prayer, one way to translate ‘to forgive’ is ‘donare veniam’, to give an indulgence or it can be translated as ‘to give grace’. When we forgive, we give the gift of grace to the other. And in so doing we receive a grace from God which is in fact infinitely greater. This is what St Therese meant when she said it was better to receive than to give. That is, what we receive from God is much greater than what we can ever give. When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we are asking for His Grace to come into our hearts and to flow out to others, especially to those we need to forgive. To renew our hearts, throw away the old wineskins of division and hatred and put on the new wineskins of love and mercy. Then we will not lose heart.

Finally, a third important aspect of prayer is Thanksgiving. We are gathered here now to celebrate the greatest prayer of the Liturgy, the Holy Eucharist, a word that literally means Thanksgiving. When we receive the supreme Gift of the Eucharist, we give thanks and continue to give thanks through our prayers and actions. It is a good practice to recall all the gifts we receive each day which are ultimately from God: the gift of life, of friendship, of the food we receive. Furthermore, we can even be thankful for the trials we endure because without these we would not have opportunities to exercise the virtues and expand our hearts for love.

We can note that when Our Lady went to visit her cousin St Elizabeth, all of these aspects of prayer are present: Faith, Forgiveness and Thanksgiving. St Elizabeth greets her with the words: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Mary replies with her song of thanksgiving: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.” In the first instance she gives thanks to God, thanking Him that He has remembered His Mercy and Forgiveness of His servant Israel. When we receive God’s Mercy in the sacrament of confession, we express our sorrow for our sins, but we should also be very thankful that He has freed us from the chains of our sins. If people could only see the effects on a soul in receiving sanctifying grace, our confessional lines would be stretching from here to Newport and beyond! Our Churches would be overfilled for mass.  Marley and Scrooge could not see the chains which shackled them in their lives. It requires faith to see this, through the eyes of little ones. Let us pray, in faith, that this comes about.