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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Faith Reflection | Hope-2025 | Jubilee of Hope | power of prayer
I’m writing this less than a week after Pope Leo XIV emerged on the balcony at St. Peter’s Square in Rome, following the announcement: “Habemus Papam!” By the time this reaches you, our new Holy Father will have been with us a few months, but right now, he’s still brand new, and I’ve been filled with an incredible hope. My hope is our new pope! On May 8, when the exciting avalanche of news began unfolding, I was recording a remote podcast and had to ignore the 43 texts that had arrived. On our short break, my guest, glancing at his phone, suddenly announced, “We have some surprising news! We have a pope, and he’s American!” My resulting gasp is fixed in perpetuity through the recording. Still, even without it, I’ll long remember where I was when I heard Cardinal Robert Prevost had been elected our new shepherd.
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Faith Reflection | Hope-2025 | Jubilee of Hope | power of prayer
For years now I have been praying the Litany of Trust by the Sisters of Life. I offer it nearly every morning, except when small children or a needy dog alter my routine. Then I do my best to pray it in the afternoon or at least before bed. The prayer itself is beautiful and powerful. I have written elsewhere about my experience coming to know it and how it helped me learn to concretely live out trust in the Lord. This prayer has become my go-to, something I’ve recommended to friends and family (and probably a few near strangers). Lines of it will come back to me in difficult moments, like a favorite song that offers comfort. This prayer brings me back to the relationship I want to have with God in reminding me of what I have surrendered to him and challenging me to give up what I continue to hold on to.
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Faith Reflection | Hope-2025 | Jubilee of Hope | power of prayer
This Lent, I had big goals for re-energizing my relationship with Christ. I signed up to send prayer cards to 40 different people in need through my parish. I had planned on praying every time I wanted to buy something for myself because I wanted to stop relying on material things for happiness. I was going to go to Adoration and Confession more often, and then all would be right during Lent. Forgetting How to Pray Except that, very early on in Lent, I forgot how to pray. I would sit for minutes that felt like hours and just be blank. It was horrible; words wouldn’t come to me. Praise was not on my lips or in my heart. In a time when I was supposed to be focusing on my relationship with Christ, I was barely even present. I began to panic a bit. I have been a Christian my entire life. Yes, I have fallen asleep during prayer before and I have certainly miscounted rosary beads and missed a few Hail Marys, but I have never forgotten how to pray entirely! Where does this leave me? Where do I go, and what can I do to fix this? I was left to stew over all these questions for several days.
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Faith Reflection | Hope-2025 | Jubilee of Hope | power of prayer
It’s one of my first “technicolor” memories. Prior to that moment, my memories are a bit of a black-and-white haze. When I stepped into Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio, it was like I was Dorothy arriving at the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz. With its strings of lights forming halos above the heads of statues, this church seemed to be a Christmas Wonderland. I was entranced. I followed my mother to a pew and imitated her prayerful posture. In that moment, I felt so close to God — closer than Dorothy ever got to the Wizard. God as Provider Prayer was a constant component of my childhood. It was the lifeline that gave our family hope, especially in the midst of financial struggles. For reasons I did not know at the time, my beloved father was chronically unemployed. As an adult, I have come to the realization that my Daddy was deeply scarred during his time as a combatant in a long-ago war. He suffered from what is now described as post-traumatic stress syndrome. While the prayers of my mother, sister, and me did not always result in a job for my father, I now believe they helped him to cope with the cross that brought him so much emotional pain. My lasting memory of my mother is of her fingering azure rosary beads in her hands. She prayed the Rosary constantly, and she taught the prayers to me, forming the foundation of my early prayer life.
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Faith Reflection | Hope-2025 | Jubilee of Hope | power of prayer
There are times in life when we all experience difficult trials or are asked to carry particularly heavy crosses. We may have to manage financial burdens, deal with an unexpected diagnosis, grieve the loss of a loved one, or endure countless other difficulties. In these times, we can feel isolated and alone, even forgotten by God, which only adds to our stress or sadness. Sometimes it is difficult to hope. I have found that spending time with the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary brings me back to the hope of heaven during my most difficult times.
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Faith Reflection | Hope-2025 | Jubilee of Hope | power of prayer
When Pope Francis declared the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, I read his papal bull, Spes Non Confudit, which means “Hope does not disappoint.” I highly encourage you to read Pope Francis’ writing on this, as well as any letters written by a pope when they declare something special for a particular year. As Pope Francis, our shepherd, cared for his flock, he recognized the need for renewed hope. We read in Scripture that hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:5), but what does that mean for people who feel hopeless, marriages that are hanging on by a thread, people in stage IV cancer, countries torn apart by war, or political parties constantly at each other’s throats? Life seems hopeless at times. Pope Francis was not writing about a hope we already have. He was drawing our attention to the need for renewed hope. Hope is not simply the virtue slipped in between faith and love. It has a particular purpose. The Holy Father wrote that the daughter of hope is “patience” (Spes Non Confundit). In the same way a mother produces sons and daughters, the offspring of a life of hope is growth in the virtue of patience. Yet technology is constantly working toward eliminating our practice of patience.
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