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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
There’s an old story about a group of single men in a Bible study. After listening the gospel of the day, they got into a debate over which sister, Mary or Martha, would make the better wife. One insisted on Martha: “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and she sure knew how to cook!” Another voted for Mary: “She was thoughtful, quiet and loving, I’d be happy with a woman like that.” Finally, another guy ended the debate: “I’d like Martha before dinner and Mary and her quiet after dinner.”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
We all draw lines. Sometimes with a pen. Sometimes with our eyes. Sometimes just in our heads, where we don’t say it out loud, but we know, who belongs and who doesn’t. Who’s one of “us,” and who’s one of “them.” Who’s good and who’s just off. Who deserves help, and who brought it on themselves. Let’s talk about one of the most universal lines we all draw, the kind that shows up not in theology books, but in traffic. If I’m driving slowly, I’m responsible. I’m aware. Maybe even holy. But if someone else is driving slowly? They are an idiot, holding everyone back. Probably texting. Or sightseeing on the highway.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
On September 7, 2025, Pope Leo, by God’s grace, raised Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager, to the altar as a saint. This canonization was an extraordinary family affair. For the first time ever, twin brother and sister and both parents celebrated the sainthood of their son and brother. Carlo died as an only child in 2006 at age fifteen. His mother and father yearned for other children without success and began the long process of adoption. Antonia, his mother, said Carlo appeared to her in a dream to tell her that she would be a mother again soon. Not long after, she discovered she was pregnant with twins. The boy, Michele, proclaimed the first reading at Mass and Francesca presented relics of Saint Carlo at the offertory.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
The prophecy today from Zechariah is a bold one, one that no person would have dared to predict on his own without divine inspiration. When Zechariah wrote, the people of Judah had just returned from Exile at the mercy of great Persia; they had re-built the Temple, and as we heard in last week’s readings, it was a meager replica of the original. Judged by appearances, they were a tiny, insignificant nation, surviving at the pleasure of far more dominant civilizations. And yet, here Zechariah is, prophesying that all peoples, including the mighty nations, will seek Jerusalem out and look to the Jews for guidance and wisdom, as the people who uniquely know the LORD. It is a stunning vision.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
Some years ago, I read a story about a little boy named Eamon, who was gravely ill and being treated in a children’s hospital. His parents kept vigil by his bedside day and night. One nurse recalled walking past his room in the small hours of the morning and finding his mother singing softly to him, holding his frail hand. She said it was the most beautiful thing she had ever witnessed: in that dimly lit hospital room, it felt like she had stepped into holy ground. The boy Eamon eventually passed away, but his parents said they felt surrounded, carried even, by a strength beyond their own, the kind you can’t explain but only receive. That, I believe, is the quiet work of angels. Not always with trumpets and fire, but with presence, with consolation, with a reminder that God is near. When we hear Daniel’s vision in the Bible—thrones set in place, rivers of fire, the “Ancient of Days” clothed in glory, it feels like something out of a movie. You almost expect special effects and a booming soundtrack. Daniel wasn’t writing a screenplay. He was trying to put into words an experience of God’s majesty that words can hardly hold.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Jerusalem lay in ruins. For seventy years the songs of worship had fallen silent, the temple reduced to rubble. And then, of all people, a Persian king, the ruler of their former captors, signed the checks to rebuild the house of God. There’s something deliciously ironic about King Darius funding the rebuilding of a temple to a God he didn’t even worship. Yet this is precisely what unfolds in our reading today. The Persian emperor, and his successors, rulers of the known world, becomes heaven’s unlikely contractors. The temple project wasn’t just approved, it came with a blank check and royal protection.
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