Margaret Rose Realy writes today about an experience she had asking a stranger if she, Realy, could pray for her. She was nervous at first, humbled by the fact that she was asking this perfect stranger to put enormous faith in her.
I asked God to guide my words, approached the group, and apologized for interrupting. There was a hard silence as they all lowered their gaze on me. I looked to the woman who was ill and asked if I, too, might be allowed to pray for her. She took a few seconds to look into my eyes, then down to my neck where a two-and-a-half inch crucifix hung. While she sized-me-up I spoke again, and through the silence asked if she would mind giving me her name that I might offer prayers on her behalf. To give someone your name is entrusting them with something very personal. Joanne McPortland wrote about the power of a name in her columns on the O Antiphons. The Antiphons are the seven prophetic chants that evoke the Messiah by one of his titles. In her second post she wrote: Names mean something. In the ancient world, the cauldron of cultures where Israel took shape, all words were performative: they called into existence what they described. Names and titles defined relationship. One’s true name was a word of immense power, guarded carefully. To entrust another with one’s name was an act of the deepest intimacy because of the vulnerability such a revelation implied.
Everything turned out for the better and now the woman is in her prayers, but she hesitated and could have decided not to bother the woman if the Holy Spirit had not moved her. With this in mind we would like to ask.
And today we celebrate...