Crisis Management

Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
There is a story about two monks who are praying evening prayer together, and as they are praying, a great storm begins to move through. They can hear enormous peals of thunder; lightning seems to continually light up the sky; trees are knocking against the stained glass windows, and the wind seems strong enough to blow the building over. When the storm seems like its worst, one monk interrupts the recitation of the psalms and turns to the other monk, saying, “We’d better put our books down and start praying!” The other monk has a strange look on his face – because he thought they were already praying.*

For most of us, there are two types of prayer: standard prayer and crisis prayer. Sometimes they go together, but often, like the one monk, we keep them separate. Standard prayer is any kind of prayer that takes place on a regular basis, like the mass, or the rosary, or Eucharistic adoration. Standard prayer leads us to pray before meals, or when we’re at a church meeting, or before going to bed at night. For the most part, we know what to expect with standard prayer, and we know how these prayers go. The other type of prayer is the exact opposite. Crisis prayer is unexpected. It is the frantic, tearful prayer at the bedside of a dying family member, or the prayer that you will find enough money to pay all the bills, which keep going up. Crisis prayer sometimes comes with community, but a lot of the time, it’s a hidden prayer, a private prayer. “Please, God, help me find a new job;” or, “Lord Jesus, take away this cancer, let the chemo work.”

But there’s another difference with crisis prayer. Standard prayer is often repetitious or routine – we know what words come after, “Bless us, O Lord …” or “Our Father …” Once you’ve been part of the Christian community for a while, these prayers become second nature. But crisis prayer is different. We don’t know how to pray when the doctor gives us six months to live; we don’t know how to pray when our house is destroyed by a fire; we don’t know how to pray when the soldier we love doesn’t come back home alive. And how could we? What words can we find in the midst of crisis that help convey our deepest longings to God? Most of the time, when we’re in crisis, we don’t even know what to pray for. Everything seems like it’s falling apart; we want to pray, we want to find God in the midst of our fears, but we can’t find the words. And that is where the Spirit comes in. In our weakness, when we don’t know how to pray or what to pray for, “the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.” (Romans 8.26) When we don’t know how to pray, the Holy Spirit takes over and intercedes on our behalf with the Father.

Our prayer is never perfect, and it is never the same. But as long as we keep the channels open, as long as we make God a regular part of our lives, then we will recognize God’s hands guiding us through any crisis, leading us through the Christian community, to be gathered into his barn. God always takes care of us, especially in times of crisis, even if it’s hard to see at the time. And if we let the Holy Spirit take over, then all will be well, according to God’s will, because the Holy Spirit can manage any crisis.

* Based on a story in Praying with St. Paul, ed. Fr. Peter John Cameron, p. 68.