Prayer and Social Transformation

December 30, 2024 by and 2 Comments

We are now in 2025, the Jubilee year, with the theme of “Pilgrims of hope.” For the whole of the preceding year, our prayer has been preparing us all for this moment. In 2024, we have lived “a privileged time in which to rediscover the value of prayer, the need for daily prayer in the Christian life; a time to discover how to pray, and above all how to educate the people of today in prayer, in this age of digital culture, so that prayer can be effective and fruitful.”1 We have all certainly experienced the fruit of personal prayer. In this reflection, we would like to deepen our thoughts on the social impact of prayer — how our prayer can assist in the transformation of society, especially in the promotion of peace, justice and human dignity.

In a catechesis on prayer, Pope Francis underlined that “the breath of faith is prayer.”2 We can understand prayer as a huge breath of life into the Church of today. To pray requires faith, especially to believe that it can be an efficacious response in front of many problems in today’s world. “Without faith I cannot pray, I cannot come close to God . . . The only thing that Jesus asked of his disciples, ignorant and of little human esteem as they were, was faith. Consequently, the power and strength of his disciples were not in their human values and aptitudes but in their faith.”3 No wonder the apostles cried out to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (Lk 17:5).

We understand prayer is vital, but it is not only vital to know this, but also to do it! In theory we all know that prayer is important, but as the Buddhist proverb goes, “to know and not yet to do, is not yet to know.” If you don’t live out what you believe, you will start to believe what you live.4 We need a lively faith that will increase our desire to do good and work for that change in society. As Pope Francis reminds us, “An authentic faith — which is never comfortable or completely personal — always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better that we found it.”5 He also writes:

Reading the Scriptures also makes it clear that the Gospel is not merely about our personal relationship with God. Nor should our loving response to God be seen simply as an accumulation of small personal gestures to individuals in need, a kind of “charity à la carte,” or a series of acts aimed solely at easing our conscience. The Gospel is about the kingdom of God (cf. Lk 4:43); it is about loving God who reigns in our world. To the extent that he reigns within us, the life of society will be a setting for universal fraternity, justice, peace and dignity. Both Christian preaching and life, then, are meant to have an impact on society.6

The Mystical Body of Christ

It may help to retake, as our central spiritual doctrine in this discussion, the Mystical Body of Christ. The Mystical Body of Christ is made up of the Head and its members, forming one Body. We are members of this Body, and Jesus encourages us to stay firmly connected to Him. “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me” (Jn 15:4–5).

This foundational doctrine is seen in the writings of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and used by the Church in her Liturgy, whereby Saint Thérèse prayed to Christ the Head, asking to be the love in the heart of the Church. Saint Augustine gives a beautiful example of the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ in his homilies on the first letter of Saint John. Describing what happens when our toe is trodden upon, the tongue does not say, “you hurt my foot,” but rather “you are hurting me!” But who touched the tongue or hurt it? No one, but “I am knit together with the parts that are trodden upon. How wouldest thou have me not be pained, when I am not separate?”7

When presented with situations of suffering in the Body of Christ, we would do well to dialogue and pray to Christ the Head. As the Head of the Body, Christ is well aware of the situation of each member. With this strong connection to the Head, we can be life-givers in the Body of Christ. We would like to focus on three areas where our prayer can give life to the Body of Christ in the world of today — in the battle for peace, the battle for justice, and the battle for human dignity.

The battle for peace

The battle for peace is an essential part of the mission of the Church. The first arm she uses is prayer, with the lively awareness that we pray to a God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph 3:20).

Here one of the authors would like to share a personal experience of the need to work for a deeper peace in each person’s heart.8 Before I entered consecrated life I worked as a plastic surgeon. On many a Saturday evening I would be busy assessing wounds in the emergency room. Often, I would see the aftermath of a heated discussion between drinking buddies. One poor soul came in with multiple lacerations to his face and scalp, caused by his neighbor hitting him over the head with a beer bottle. The patient needed precisely 154 stitches in total, and I counted each and every one for the ensuing police report! The next day his wife came onto the ward, looked at me straight in the eye, and with unbridled aggression announced, “Just you wait! Next Saturday, that neighbor will be here and will need 300 stitches!” It did strike me, even as a busy doctor with little time for prayer and spiritual reflection, that our work of stitching up those facial wounds was noble, but there were also some deeper wounds of the heart ­­— wounds of hatred and violence — that also needed urgent attention if we were going to avoid increasingly busy Saturday evenings.

This is precisely the work of Christ, the “good Doctor” who comes to heal those deep wounds with a peace the world cannot give.9 To experience that peace, it is necessary to receive it as a gift from Christ Himself. This peace is the gift the Risen Lord gives his disciples in the Upper Room, saying twice, “Peace be with you” before breathing on them (see Jn 20:19–22). In prayer we can listen to that voice of Christ, transmitting to us that very same peace.10

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches that “it is through prayer that the Church engages in the battle for peace. Prayer opens the heart not only to a deep relationship with God but also to an encounter with others marked by respect, understanding, esteem and love.”11 The battle for peace is inseparable from the battle of prayer. As Saint James underlined, the war will often begin within: “Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?” (Jas 4:1, NABRE). Thus, there will be no peace outside if first we do not work for that peace that flows from within. As Pope Francis mentioned, “it is not easy to care for peace. It is a daily task, because within each of us is that seed of original sin, that is, the spirit of Cain which — for envy, jealousy, greed, and the desire to dominate — leads to war.”12

And prayer, and to pray, is not always easy. It is rather ironic that in this battle for peace, the first battle is the battle of prayer! This is the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God.”13

The battle for justice

The battle for justice is another challenging one. How many injustices seem to abound around us? It is tempting to be defeatist and hold that the situation “just is” like this! Without prayer, and prolonged moments of it, we can give in all too easily.14 It is interesting that Jesus gives us the parable teaching about persevering in prayer through the example of the persistent widow in the context of social injustice (see Lk 18:1–8). The widow persistently pleaded to the unjust judge for justice against her adversary. The judge responds, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!”15 The Lord gives the key to the parable. “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Here our Lord links prayer to the virtue of faith, a faith that is not passive, static and given once and for all, but a faith we need to exercise. To pray requires a certain faith, as “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb 11:6). I was impressed by evenings of prayer organized by the International Justice Mission. This group dedicates itself to rescuing and restoring victims of human trafficking, bringing criminals to justice, and strengthening justice systems.16 They are very active in fighting for justice and now work to combat online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC). In their prayer gatherings, they would make petitions for specific actions such as a successful prosecution of a trafficker, for protection of their investigators from trafficking gangs, or for the conversion of heart of a biased judge who supported the owner of a bar where underage prostitution occurred. This prayer formed a solid foundation for their work. Thus, we can easily grasp that prayer is essential in the battle for justice.

The battle for human dignity

In traditional Catholic teaching, the basis for the dignity of each human being comes from the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26), a doctrine known as imago Dei.17 This teaching is at the forefront of many fights to uphold the dignity and respect of each person. Pope Benedict XVI commented:

God’s love does not differentiate between the newly conceived infant still in his or her mother’s womb and the child or young person, or the adult and the elderly person. God does not distinguish between them because he sees an impression of his own image and likeness (Genesis 1:26) in each one. He makes no distinctions because he perceives in all of them a reflection of the face of his Only-begotten Son . . . Indeed, the human person has been endowed with a very exalted dignity, which is rooted in the intimate bond that unites him with his Creator: a reflection of God’s own reality shines out in the human person, in every person, whatever the stage or condition of his life.18

Prayer is that mirror where we can gaze at the face of Christ and be reminded that we are sons and daughters of God. In this loving gaze, we discover our very dignity and the dignity due to each brother and sister.19 This gaze, which recognizes the inherent value of each person, is at times lacking in our modern society. One need only consider the gaze held by society over the human embryo, which for many is not held worthy of dignity and respect, but rather is just a “bunch of cells” that can be used, abused, and destroyed as deemed necessary. The tragic consequence of this blurred vision is seen in the devastating number of abortions carried out every year, or the strenuous efforts in some countries to eliminate babies with Down’s syndrome while they are still in the womb.20 Here it shows we have lost the capacity to gaze at the other, especially the smallest and more vulnerable — the human embryo and fetus — and acknowledge their true worth and dignity.21 We can understand that when we lose sight of God, we lose sight of our humanity:

At the heart of biblical faith is God’s love, his concrete concern for every person, and his plan of salvation which embraces all of humanity and all creation, culminating in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without insight into these realities, there is no criterion for discerning what makes human life precious and unique. Man loses his place in the universe, he is cast adrift in nature, either renouncing his proper moral responsibility or else presuming to be a sort of absolute judge, endowed with an unlimited power to manipulate the world around him.22

In the mission apostolate also, the people will have various needs. But what is crucial is to help them grow in the sense of their own dignity. I have witnessed missionaries doing everything to help a poor boy find work — finding him a job, giving him the fare for the interview and the clothes to wear for it. But in the end, after all that effort, the boy did not go to the interview, as being from a poor family, he felt ashamed and not worthy. It makes a difference to put people in prayer, to help them discover their dignity as sons and daughters of God. This dignity cannot be taken away and is an indispensable foundation for building up the character and self-esteem of all our brothers and sisters.

Conclusion

During his General Audiences on prayer, Pope Francis underlined that “prayer is the breath of life.”23 How urgent the work of teaching people to pray — akin to teaching them how to breathe spiritually! When you teach someone to pray, you have saved them.24 This salvation includes bringing more peace to our hearts and daily lives, saving us from our warmongering tendencies. Prayer also helps us work for justice, and in prayer, we are already giving God what is His due — some moments of our precious time and a moment of sharing our hearts to Him. Prayer also helps us grow in self-dignity and hold others in more esteem.

The Church and today’s world urgently need the deep breath of prayer. Every time we pray, we are giving life to the world of today. All the members of the Body of Christ benefit from each effort of prayer. Jaime Bonet, the founder of the Verbum Dei community, has noted:25

Our lives greatly influence the whole Body of Christ because giving Life to some people, also gives life to the entire Body. I would say that it is something similar to what happens in the human body when an injection is given in a vein, or a certain part of the body. Maybe the person has a sore, a microbe, or a disease in a part of the body and the injection is given at a distant site in another part of the body. However, the result is that it heals the sick part, and makes the damaged part healthy. The intention of the injection is to heal the diseased part — the effect benefits the whole body. This, in an analogous way, happens in the Body of Christ.26

The Church and today’s world urgently needs the deep breath of prayer. The benefits of prayer are not only personal; indeed, they also help in the transformation of society. Every time we pray, we are giving life to the world of today — a deep breath of life-giving oxygen into the whole Body of Christ of today — with concrete implications for building up the Kingdom of peace, justice and human dignity.

  1. Msgr. Rino Fisichella, Press Conference to present the Year of Prayer in preparation for the 2025 Jubilee and the series “Notes on Prayer,” 23 January 2024. ↩
  2. Pope Francis, The Church, teacher of prayer, Catechesis on prayer 29, 14 April 2021. ↩
  3. Jaime Bonet, Así Será Tu Descendencia, 58–59. The original Spanish text reads, “Pues sin fe no puedo orar, no puedo acercarme a Dios . . . Lo único que pedía Jesús a sus discípulos, de sí ignorantes y de poca estima humana, era la fe. De ahí, que la potencia y fuerza de los discípulos no estaba en sus valores y aptitudes humanas, sino en su fe.” ↩
  4. In a more general way, this split is mentioned in Gaudium et Spes: “This split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age” (n. 43). ↩
  5. Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 183. ↩
  6. Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 180. ↩
  7. Cf. Saint Augustine, Tenth homily on the 1st letter of Saint John (1 Jn 5:1–3), n.8, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 901. ↩
  8. Recounted by Fr. James McTavish. Personal experiences by their nature are subjective and are not always so freely shared in academia. The teaching of the Second Vatican Council, however, gives a fresh impetus to the value of human experience, where in Gaudium et Spes, we are encouraged to analyze events “in the light of the Gospel and of human experience” (n. 46). Of course, our discourse cannot only be founded on experience alone, but ignoring our experience is to deny the reality of the Incarnation! And the holiness of Saints such as Teresa of Avila and St Thérèse is rooted in their very spiritual and human experience. ↩
  9. In Church tradition, Jesus is frequently referred to as the “Divine Physician” and “Good Doctor.” Saint Augustine cries “Physician of my soul” or “my inner physician” (Confessions, bk. 10, chap. 3) and “Have pity on me, O Lord, in my misery. I do not hide my wounds from you. I am sick, and you are the physician” (Confessions, bk. 10, chap. 28). Faithful to this long tradition, the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to Christ as “the physician of souls and bodies,” n. 1421. ↩
  10. We are able to listen to God through a prayerful reading of the words of Sacred Scripture. This teaching is highlighted in Dei Verbum, n. 25, the document from the Second Vatican Council on Divine Revelation. “Let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that God and man may talk together; for ‘we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine saying.’ ” This quote also incorporates the teaching of Saint Ambrose which I have highlighted in italics. ↩
  11. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 519. ↩
  12. Pope Francis, Homily, Morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta, 6 Feb 2017. ↩
  13. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2725. We find an inspiring example of the struggle of prayer and being victorious in battle in the life of Moses. As long as Moses held up his hands in the gesture of prayer, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, they started to lose (see Exod 17:11–12). ↩
  14. We can contribute to the building up of situations of injustice (structures of sin) through our “laziness, fear or the conspiracy of silence, through secret complicity or indifference” (John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 16). ↩
  15. In Lk 18:5, the Greek word “ὑπωπιάζῃ” translated in the NIV as “attack” could be rendered as giving the judge a “black eye”! ↩
  16. From the International Justice Mission website at www.ijm.org/. ↩
  17. The doctrine of imago Dei is amply covered in the document from the International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, 2004. ↩
  18. Benedict XVI, The Human Embryo in the Pre-implantation phase, 27 February 2007. ↩
  19. Both authors of this paper have encountered examples of women who previously had learned to pray in a Verbum Dei activity and initially persevered for some time, but later felt they fell away from the Church. They got pregnant and considered abortion. They then narrated how at that moment they were reminded of how they used to pray, and remembering the former experience of prayer moved them to decide to keep their baby. ↩
  20. Globally there are around 75 million abortions each year. In England and Wales, abortions are carried out for babies with cleft lip and cleft palate. This condition, which is readily correctable by surgery after birth, is judged by the British government as an issue that makes the baby lose its dignity and right to be born and live as a human being. ↩
  21. Various Church documents on Bioethics underline the importance of upholding the dignity of the human embryo, the smallest and least of our brothers and sisters (Mt 25:40). See Dignitas Personae (37), Evangelium Vitae (104) and the conclusion of Donum Vitae. ↩
  22. Francis, Lumen Fidei, 54. ↩
  23. Francis, Perseverance in love, Catechesis on prayer 37, 9 June 2021. ↩
  24. This teaching refers not merely or only to the salvation at the end of our days, as most of us also want to be saved today. During the coronavirus pandemic, I met various people who testified that “learning how to pray with the Word of God has been salvation” as well as “Prayer with the Word of God saved me and my family too!” ↩
  25. The Verbum Dei founder, Jaime Bonet, was very aware of the life-giving potential of each missionary, so much so that in the formula of consecration, recited in the profession of vows, each member asks that they can dedicate “to the attentive and delicate care of my Total Christ, Head and members.” ↩
  26. Cf. Jaime Bonet, Familiares de Dios, 544. Original Spanish text reads, “nuestras vidas influyen enormemente en todo el Cuerpo de Cristo, pues aplicando la Vida a unas personas, se aplica al Cuerpo entero. Diría yo que es algo semejante a lo que acontece en el cuerpo humano cuando se pone una inyección en una vena, o en determinada parte del cuerpo. A lo mejor, la persona tiene una llaga, un microbio, una enfermedad en una parte del cuerpo y se le aplica la inyección en otra parte muy distante. No obstante, el resultado es que sana la parte enferma y logra la salud de aquella parte dañada. La intención es curar la parte enferma. El efecto repercute en todo el cuerpo. Así, de modo análogo, acontece en el Cuerpo de Cristo.” ↩
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Fr. James McTavish, FMVD About Fr. James McTavish, FMVD

Fr. James McTavish, FMVD, MD, STL, is a Verbum Dei missionary, from Scotland. By profession he is a surgeon and met the Verbum Dei missionaries in Sydney, Australia during his specialization in pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery. He entered religious life in 1999, spending his formation years in the Philippines and Rome, before being ordained to the priesthood in 2008. He completed a license in moral theology from the Accademia Alfonsiana (Redemptorist Higher Institute of Moral Theology in Rome) and an MA in bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, Rome. He combines his teaching ministry with an active apostolate, helping to form the laity in prayer and evangelization.

Dr. Lucía Aurora Herrerías, FMVD About Dr. Lucía Aurora Herrerías, FMVD

Lucía Aurora Herrerías FMVD is a Verbum Dei Missionary who was born in Mexico. She has worked as a missionary in Spain, Australia, the Philippines, Italy and Mexico. She finished her theological studies in Santo Tomas University (Manila), and a doctorate in philosophy at the Gregorian University (Rome). She taught philosophy for 25 years at Verbum Dei Theological Institute in Mexico and Spain. She was also the worldwide president of the Verbum Dei community from 2012 to 2018. Her current ministries are mainly spiritual direction and guiding Spiritual Exercises and retreats.

Comments

  1. Avatar Tom McGuie says:
    December 31, 2024 at 8:21 am

    James and Lucia,
    Your central message of the need for prayer is urgent in the work of tranforming society. As I read your article I was looking for a broader sense of community with those who suffer. Dorthy Day gave witness to the central role of prayer in her life work among the poor. Her prayer led to a sense of fellowship with, for example, she wrote, “Urging you to build up a feeling of fellowship among yourselves, to try each one of you to be what you would have the other fellow be, to help each other and to love each other, because Christ loves each one of you. Living as we are in a time of emergency, thrown together in a companionship with others of different races and creeds, let us try to think of ourselves as a community, in thirty-three houses of unemployed.”

    Day, Dorothy. The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day . The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

    Reply
    • Fr James McTavish Fr James McTavish says:
      December 31, 2024 at 12:17 pm

      Thanks Tom for sharing your insight.
      I believe we have tried to incorporate a “broader sense of community with those who suffer”. A key aspect of our article is the centrality of the community in the Mystical Body of Christ which “is made up of the Head and its members, forming one Body.” The three areas of social transformation mentioned – peace, justice and human dignity – all allude to situations of suffering in the Body of Christ, of which various examples are given.
      The quote you shared from Dorothy Day is interesting.
      God bless,
      Fr James

      Reply

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