1301 Praying for adults is not so easy !

Praying for adults is not so easy !

‘Do not even the pagans do that ?’

Such are the surprising words of Jesus in The Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel according to St Matthew in chapter 5, verses 43 to 48. ‘Love your enemies, pray for them which persecute you ! Praying for your friends, even the pagans do that !’

Indeed, you let us know that a legitimate emotion leads us naturally to pray for these children. But how far more difficult it is to pray for those who abuse them, for the one who rapes the child I love in my prayer, whose first name dwells in my heart.

And if this fraternal service of prayer had mysterious consequences, known to God alone, not only for this child and for this poor adult, but also for me as I am committed to this prayer.

You did not choose me, but I chose you.

And if, in the call to this prayer, we discovered a third character, ourselves, who are fond of the poor victim but who find it difficult to renew our benevolence towards this poor adult, poor because of what he may have suffered in the past, poor certainly because of the harm he is doing today.

And if it was for us a new opportunity to become aware of our own poverty, of our own difficulty in bringing our love beyond what is experienced by the pagans themselves. It is the difficulty in loving people suffering from what the human eyes consider as different kinds of poverty whereas they are all poor and loved by God who wants to rescue each of them from his/her own death.

And if it was for us a new opportunity to become aware of what Christ’s love for the poor child, the poor adult and for the poor Christian means. And if your prayer received new reasons to worship this God, ‘unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness’ (1Co1:23), who died on the Holy Cross for us, for all of us, for me !

Father Bruno