Praying in Crisis Susan Windley-Daoust
Director of Missionary Discipleship swindley@dowr.org
Free Ideas for Evangelization! Dr. Susan Windley-Daoust published a book this summer titled 101 Ways to Evangelize: Ideas for Helping Fearless, Fearful, and Flummoxed Catholics Share the Good News of Jesus Christ. The publisher agreed to make the content available to the people of the Diocese of WinonaRochester for free! Please go to this webpage for a free PDF version of the booklet: https://www.dowr.org/ offices/missionary-discipleship/ways-toevangelize.html
Resources for Parishes During Covid-19 Does your parish need help determining how to move forward in the midst of COVID-19? Check the list of adapted possibilities to foster worship, community, and outreach at the Missionary Discipleship during COVID-19 webpage. Go to: https://www.dowr.org/offices/ missionary-discipleship/resources.html
�his month marks our 19th annual remembrance of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In
my adult life, it was the first time I had experienced a national crisis. It was frightening, devastating, and deeply sad. The uncertainty in the next few days and weeks, even months—what would happen next? Were we at war? A draft? More sudden attacks? How do we protect the vulnerable? How do we mourn in a crisis?—kept many of us up at night. This pandemic is in some ways similar and in some ways different. No question, 9-11 hit some people much harder. But the pandemic is hitting some others much harder, and is stretched out into months with no sure end in sight. During 9-11, I was good friends with a Christian minister, just as shocked by the terrorist attacks as the rest of us. I asked, "What do you all preach on when people’s worlds have turned upside down?" Their church was spending time praying, mourning, and studying the Lord’s prayer. Because, she said, when you don’t have words, you use the Lord’s words. The daily prayer given to us by Jesus Christ fills us on good days and bad days and horrific days. Maybe now, they thought, people will pray it and pay attention to the consolation of the Father. I remember when my husband and I were adopting one of our children in an Eastern European country, living in a rural town for a month. A priest gave us a copy of Magnificat daily prayer since we were uncertain how we could get to Mass while we were there, and, although we sometimes could, that daily prayer booklet was a lifeline. The orphanage we visited daily was hard to bear, and walking away from neglected and dying children was tearing us up—not to mention our sweet new son was not in good shape. I had never prayed the psalms while literally crying through them. But God gave us the words when we did not have them ourselves, through his Scriptures. We bore what we could not imagine through the words he gave us. I remember when my sister-in-law, who lives two hours away, had a massive heart attack at age 32, after giving birth. We thought she was dead, but weren’t sure. Some family members were rushing to the hospital. Others, including our family, were on a group call, crying, trying to talk but unable to, mostly praying the rosary over and over until we got any word. Again, when we didn’t have words, we were given them by God himself, and they kept us afloat. (And, after days in a coma, my sister-in-law lived, possibly miraculously.)
Missionary Discipleship
Staying Afloat
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Back to our current crisis. I don’t want to define anyone’s experience, but this crisis is different in that it is extended, has no clear endpoint, and effects many different elements of people’s lives: work or lack of it, schooling decisions, difficult medical realities, relationships with older family members, and the deep stress and tension that exposes itself through argument, blame, and hate. It is no less a crisis for many. If you feel you can safely participate in Mass in person, do so. No other crisis in modern memory has separated us from the Mass. If you cannot, view and pray with the Mass online or our diocesan TV Mass. But, regardless: pray. Pray when you don’t feel like it. Pray when you do feel like it. Post prayers around the house if you need to. Pray with others when you possibly can, reach out and start a group of prayer (where two or three are gathered…). Pray for an end to the pandemic. Pray for an increase in faith, your own and that of the people of Southern Minnesota. Pray to have eyes to see and ears to hear, as Jesus suggests. Pray to the Holy Spirit and give him permission to act in your life today. Pray as you can, not as you can’t. If you have no words, use the Lord’s; they are trustworthy. But pray. Crises can give birth to saints, and our Church needs them. The seemingly endless nature of this pandemic is nothing compared to the truly endless goodness and power of God. God does not disappoint. Let’s turn to him in good times and in bad times, including the present moment.
September 2020 w The Courier w dowr.org