“Let’s pray for the Red Sox! They’ll need a
miracle to recover from this!”
It was a grey day at the end of September 2012. I was driving an
elderly couple from Connecticut to Logan airport. We were on the Mass Pike
extension at the point of the BU dorms, and Fenway “Paak” (Or so it is
pronounced in Boston!) loomed in the distance, with lights on and with a far
from capacity crown attending one of the final games of an abysmal year.
The Sox were in last place. Ultimately they would only win
sixty-nine (Record: 69W – 93L) games all season. There were a feckless team
torn by internal dissension, and by the drain of power from performance that
results from such dissension and disunity. “A kingdom divided against itself
cannot stand” – Jesus
So, much in the manner of an “off the cuff” remark, I looked ahead
of us toward the lights of Fenway and said, “Let’s pray for the Red Sox!
They’ll need a miracle to recover from this!”
Immediately, the elderly woman in the back seat pulled out of her
handbag a bottle of holy water. She opened her window, said a prayer, and began
to throw out the holy water in the direction of Fenway right as we passed by.
I laughed. It was funny to see this totally unexpected response to
my plea for prayer. Yet now, a year later, I’m not laughing. The woman had her
prayer answered beyond my wildest dreams. My team, my Red Sox, won the World
Series - only a year later! One can say, “What a difference a year makes!” and
then leave it at that. But for a person of faith, there is a deeper lesson to
learn – that “It is no secret what God can do!” (To quote the great Ann Murray
song.); that “Prayer changes things”; that God answers prayer; that “More great
things in this world have been wrought by prayer than people can even dream
possible.”
Though it was funny to see that woman do what she did, I regret
today that I laughed back then in September 2012. I fear the cynicism of
Zechariah who scoffed at Gabriel’s announcement of the birth of John the
Baptist through his wife Elizabeth, a “woman advanced in years.” I fear a lack
of faith. I fear a heart filled with doubt.
Since the awesome Red Sox victory only a year after that woman’s
prayer, I have prayed fervently for many things, and my prayer has been with
the humble faith of Mary, for whom it was “no secret what God can do.”
God give us more the humble faith of Mary, who in the face of
Gabriel’s announcement of the Virgin Birth, simply said, “Let it done to me
according to your word.”
God give us more and more the amazing faith of Mary, who in the
face of Gabriel’s announcement of the Incarnation, the birth of the Son of God
through her, simply bowed and said, “Fiat voluntas tua.” – Let it be done
according to your will.
I pray now for the power of faith. I pray now for Mary’s faith.
With that faith I pray for the healing of my grandson. I pray for the healing
of my beautiful daughter. I pray for the healing of my former high school. I
pray that the Lord will deliver our country from the darkness that has come
over it. Other people may laugh when I make these prayers, but I will not.
Lastly, I pray one day to be with the Lord among the Saints. I
pray, if you will, for that “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that can save
a wretch like me…” Other people may laugh at the this thought of my salvation,
but I will not, for I have seen and I have felt the saving Power of God’s
Spirit unleashed upon our lives even now in this time through the Body and
Blood of Jesus.
