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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 | Why pray?
There is something interesting about how we remember things. When I was a child, we had a steel trunk under the bed, packed with old clothes, letters, books, old silverware, and photographs. On some days, my mother would open it, sit on the floor, and start pulling things out: a yellowed shirt, a broken pair of spectacles, a letter written in ink so faded it looked like fog. Every time she opened it, we kids would groan, “Not again!” because we knew we were about to sit through another episode of The Dusty Chronicles, staring at silverware from 1972. But she’d sit on the floor like a museum curator, holding up the silverware, “Shhh… This is who we are.” She wasn’t preserving junk. She was preserving meaning.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
“I will follow you…wherever you go.” As Luke's Gospel says, those words were spoken to Jesus by an unnamed “…someone.” The fact that the person isn’t named allows us to see ourselves as that person. Each of us, whether using those words or simply by our actions, such as being at this Mass, has communicated our willingness to follow Jesus. As we know, this is a lot easier in a church, a seminary, or a retreat than once we walk out into the other realities and responsibilities of the world. Jesus intimates this when He says, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” But He doesn’t stop there, He says to another person present, “Follow me.”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
Jesus is both God and Man. God is both One and Three. These theological mysteries of our faith, where seemingly impossible things go together, continue a pattern of more immediate, personal mysteries that many of the heroes in our Scriptures were asked to embrace. Before the burning bush, Moses asked the Lord, “Why send me to convince Pharaoh, when I am such a poor speaker?” At the Annunciation, Mary replied to the angel, “How can I give birth to the Messiah since I am a virgin?”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
A sunrise or a sunset over still water. The silence before a symphony begins. A child laughing in sleep. A blessing whispered from the deathbed. These are moments that do not ask to be explained. Only received. These are not events to be intervened, but mysteries to be knelt before. The Transfiguration is one such moment. The mountain is where the veil thins, where the ordinary gives way. “Mountains in Scripture are never destinations, they are thresholds. From Sinai to Tabor, they are where God speaks so we can descend changed. The climb is not about escape, but a preparation for everything waiting below.”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” This is an old saying that expresses the suffering and difficulties that leaders can endure. In each of today’s Scripture readings we see an important leader of God’s people go through a different kind of trial. In the first reading from the Book of Numbers, we hear yet another “grumbling story,” where the people Israel speak rebelliously against God and His servant Moses. Today’s scene, in fact, represents quite an escalation in this dynamic, for here we see not simply an unnamed crowd of complainers, but Moses’ own sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron, challenging the reality of Moses’ unique relationship with God and criticizing Moses’ decision to marry a foreigner. The sense of betrayal Moses would have felt must have been enormous.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
Today’s first reading includes one of the more painfully honest moments in Moses’ leadership journey: “I cannot carry all these people by myself, for they are too heavy for me.” We don’t get the grand miracles, the parting of seas, or thunder from Sinai. No, today we get Moses at his wit’s end, exhausted, frustrated, and frankly, ready to resign. This might be the first recorded case of clergy or leadership burnout. This might be the most relatable passage in all of Scripture for anyone who's ever had to lead a group trip, a parish committee, or even wrangle hungry kids at dinnertime. The Israelites are in the wilderness, and what are they doing? Complaining. Loudly. “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt… the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic!” It's like someone handed them a review for their time of slavery in Egypt: “Two stars, poor working conditions, terrible boss, but the food was great.” They’re nostalgic for oppression, simply because the food there had better sauce and seasoning.
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