They Know We are People Who Pray

By Rebecca F., missionary in Costa Rica

I have been very moved by the impact of our life of prayer. After a Sunday Mass one of our friends came up to me and asked that we pray for her; she had just had a biopsy and was anxious about the results that she would receive three months later. I had never had the opportunity to have a real conversation with her as the other girls had always gone to visit, not me. Thus, I was very surprised that she chose to share this with me first, especially because I’m accustomed to personal health issues being a subject that you only share with family or close friends. A few days later, I went to visit her in her house and she poured out the history of her abusive ex-boyfriend and the chronic health problems that she’s been battling for years. When I later shared her request for prayer and my wonder that she would be so open when she barely knew me, Agnes said, “Many of our friends do this because they know that we are people who pray.” That hit me hard.

Never before had I realized that my life of prayer could be such a poignant witness to Christ. Never had I thought that our hours of adoration when there is nobody in the church, our routine of Liturgy of the Hours in our little chapel at home, the rosaries we pray on the bus or walking through the streets, and our personal devotions would impact someone in this way. Who was I to be entrusted with such vulnerability simply because I prayed? It wasn’t the more visible moments when I spoke in front of people asking them to sponsor me, or when I told my supervisor at work that I was leaving, or when I explained to the man next to me on the plane why I was coming to Costa Rica, or anything else I had done in my life, but it is our constant, somewhat hidden life of prayer that revealed Christ’s love and opened the hearts of others.

I have also grown to love our prayer life both in light of my relationship with all you back home and because of an image given to us by Fr. Alex, our mission advisor. He explained how our daily rhythm of prayer is like the lungs of the Church. Like lungs, our prayers can never stop; lungs need to be expanding and contracting constantly. If they stop, the body dies. So too, if the Church stops praying, the Body of Christ will also die. How beautiful it is to think of all the religious sisters, monks, priests, and lay people in the world, united in the same prayers, the same rhythm of oration every single day, breathing for the Church and the whole world! And how incredible it is that I can participate in this powerful unity as well! I am truly spoiled to have a multitude of opportunities to do this every single day.