Power of Prayer: Healing Power of Daily Prayer

By Janina Gomes

In today's rushed world, not many people find the time to pray. Even those who do pray are in a terrible hurry. Naturally then, the heart and mind are often disconnected from the words of prayer which are uttered as a matter of routine. Instead of having a heart-to-heart talk with God, we end up merely reciting. So prayer tends to become a superficial and mechanical task that's not particularly pleasing. Unsurprisingly, one often prays grudgingly.

There are many ways, however, of perceiving prayer. Everyday prayer can help us to experience great spiritual heights when our hearts are touched by moments of exquisite beauty. These moments of grace may be rare of course, but they could capture our whole life and lift us from the mundane, giving us fresh insight into all the lows in our life.

Jesus often suggested to his disciples to Òwatch and prayÓ. People who make everyday prayer a habit are those who have surrendered their lives to the ultimate rescuing power of God and who bank on the external, healing powers of the Supreme Being. It is popularly recounted that Mother Teresa's colleagues in India would often not know where their next meal would come from. They would lift their needs to God in prayer, and sometimes as if in miraculous answer, a truckload of food would arrive from a beneficiary at their doorstep.

The power of everyday prayer is boundless: It is a documented fact that community prayer services have worked miracles, especially in healing the sick. One example of a mother's unflinching faith in the power of prayer is the story of St Monica who prayed without fail daily and untiringly Ñ for her wayward son to be redeemed. Not only did her son change for the better, he went on to become a great doctor and bishop in the church. He was St Augustine.

Daily prayer is not restricted to only asking for personal favours and daily needs, though even this is legitimate and good. One important reason for everyday prayer is to honour and thank God, even for the little things of life. ÒWe are His servants not only in lofty cathedrals where His mysteries appear to us in overawing splendour and enrapturing beauty. We are His servants also in the field or the workshop, at the desk or in the washtubÓ.

A theologist writer who advocates daily prayer said: ÒDespite weakness, depression, and weariness, a small shaft is again and again dug by honest labour, and through that shaft a ray of eternal light falls upon a heart buried by the debris of daily lifeÓ.Daily prayer is meant to transform our lives Ñ from lives of gossip, trifles and pettiness and greed to a sincere commitment to God, so that even the way we live in, itself becomes a prayer offering.

Norman Vincent Peale describes his encounter with a man confined to a wheelchair who exuded a rare happiness. When he was a child his mother had left him on the front porch while she did her housework. Somehow he got to the edge of the porch and fell headlong, hurting his spine. The accident left him wheelchair-bound since the age of 12. Instead of wallowing in self pity he found strength in daily prayer. So he came to exude an unusual sense of God's presence and his method of daily prayer was to pray for other people too, by just sitting in his wheelchair, loving them and giving them to God.

Prayer can help us overcome daily tribulation; it can infuse fresh hope and faith in us, enabling us to face every new challenge with renewed confidence. Community prayers bring different people together, united in compassion and altruistic intention. Prayer heals.