Every morning at 5:30, my grandmother gets up to pray. Taking her place on the little wooden kneeler in the spare bedroom, she reaches for her rosary to continue some novena or another offered for the intentions of her family.
About the same time, my mother-in-law is making her way to the orange reclining chair in her living room to begin the ritual of saying morning prayers for her family. And four hundred miles away, my mother is simultaneously descending the stairs to arrive at the family room and her stash of prayer books by the couch.
While I sleep, these women pray for me, and for their husbands, and their children, and grandchildren, and nieces and nephews and friends, and sometimes for the stranger they read about in yesterday's paper or the one they met in line last night at Walgreens. For decades, the daily prayers of these women have helped me and many others. I'm convinced of it.
We don't tend to recognize the influence of prayer as it's actually in motion, however. The spiritual movement is too subtle (or, perhaps, we are simply too obtuse to recognize it). But it's there. I'm convinced of it.
Of course, there's no scientific way to prove that I would have left the Church, or that I would have jeopardized my vocation, or that I would have become someone entirely different from who I am if it weren't for the prayers offered on my behalf. We can't measure the impact of my grandmother's unceasing novenas or my father's daily surrender of his children into the hands of God. But I truly believe that, as an antidote to our ignorance and hardened hearts, God honors the prayers of others who sometimes know what we need more than we do.
I realize not everyone has an army of prayer-warrior relatives like I do. Some might argue that intercessory prayer can't be so effective, or so essential, because that wouldn't be fair to people who don't have anyone praying for them. Some might argue that their conversion happened without a single prayer offered on their behalf. But I propose that no one goes unprayed for in this life, thanks to the existence of the Catholic Church.
Think of the prayers of petition offered at every Mass in every Church in nearly every corner of the world. There we pray for all manner of people: sick, sinful, or otherwise. Think of the Good Friday liturgy when we pray for Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, those of other faiths, those searching for God, and those who don't believe in God at all. That prayer doesn't miss anybody.
Think of how right now, scattered across the globe, thousands of contemplative monks and nuns in religious orders are offering sacrifices and praying for sinners. That means us. All of us. What a priceless gift, and one we often fail to appreciate.
And even if all these continual streams of intercessory prayer should somehow miss a soul, our faith assures us that he is not forgotten. How could Mary, the mother of the human race, ever forget her child? Indeed, the whole heavenly host of angels and saints is interceding on behalf of those of us still in "exile" here below.
So why isn't the earth populated with living saints what with all this prayer floating around? Perhaps the picture isn't complete until we are all praying for one another. This won't happen if we dismiss prayer as the pastime of nuns, grandmothers, and saints. We're part of this human family too. We've got the power: the power of prayer.