Pray Without Ceasing

I recently received an e-mail from a Protestant friend. It contained a article and a video clip from CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network. The headline was;

Senate Chaplain Barry Black Has This Answer to Joy Behar's Attack & Those Who Dismiss Prayers for Florida

This article addressed the controversy over the the outpouring of prayers for the victims of the Florida High School shootings, their families, and their fellow students and faculty who survive. Let us pray!

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them, and may the souls of all the faithful departed, by the mercy of God, Rest In Peace!

And may Your Peace, O Lord, which surpasses all understanding, embrace their families and those who survived, and surround them, O God, with your love!  Amen!

Berry Black is the current Chaplin of the U. S. Senate, he is a former Chief of the Navy Chaplin Corps. In the CBN interview, Chaplin Black, a Seventh Day Adventist, answered the attack on prayer in general and Christianity in particular, by many on the left.

In response to the accusation that; “prayers are an empty gesture,” Black said; “Prayer is the only thing we're told to do without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5), so, even when we're working we ought to be praying," then, forcing his point home, he really got this old Catholic’s attention, paraphrasing Saint Augustine, “ Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” Hooked, I watched the interview and Chaplin Black knocked my socks off!

He spent more time in the interview on the importance of relationship with Jesus Christ and refers to the Catholic spiritual classic, “The Practice of the Presence of God,” By Brother Lawrence. He then said that we tend to talk more than listen to God and recommended praying the scriptures! He went on to say that he prayed the Psalms daily, adding that he spent an hour each day at prayer!

For me, all this just reinforced the importance of prayer, especially the Liturgy of the Hours! Bathed as it is in the Psalms, as well as both Old and New Testament readings, this devotion reveals to us, “Him whom to know aright is eternal life!” Especially this Lenten season, all of us, Protestant and Catholic alike, should follow Chaplin Black’s example and join in the prayer of the Church, for as scripture has it; “the prayers of a righteous man availeth much!”