Prayer: Unsung and Invisible Source

On the 2020 Day for Older Persons, Brigidine Sisters draw inspiration from their own older Sisters and also Sr Clare Boehmer who is now retired in Illinois after 60 years of active ministry. She recently wrote the following reflection during her sixth month of living in lockdown in the community’s retirement facility due to the pandemic:

“The days are past when we served meals to the hungry, or joined marches protesting injustice, vicious words and violent actions. Perhaps for some of us the days are past even for writing letters or making telephone calls to elected officials who can make a difference.

These things, then, can no longer be our response to the pandemics that have turned our world upside down. But we are still people of faith who have lived long enough to have seen and felt the power of prayer so often that it is no longer a matter of faith alone. We know what we have experienced.

It is up to us people of faith to continue to be true to what we profess, and to continue to direct the power of our combined prayers to the chaos in our world, even when the falsity that we “have no power at all” feels like it may be the truth. After all, the Source of our power dwells within and among us, guiding all of us to survive this crisis, and enabling us to emerge from the chaos to live in a future that we can neither predict nor imagine. And, even better than that, that Source has promised never to leave us orphans. On this we can rely.” (NCR, Sept 29, 2020)

  • What aspect of this reflection offers you hope? What points challenge you? This is a reflection those who are retired or in care facilities might discuss with one another and pray about as the pandemic keeps so many in lockdown.