Pray More and Love One Another

Divine Appeal Reflection - 185

Today, consider in Divine Appeal 185: "Make people pray more and love one another. My Heart is filled with pain. I ask many to help souls to return to Me."

“Make people pray more and love one another.” There is a hidden order in these words that reaches into the very structure of Christian existence. Our Adorable Jesus places prayer before love because the heart cannot continually give what it has not first received from God. Prayer opens the soul to grace, teaches it to remain in Christ, and allows divine love to become the source of human charity . The branch bears fruit only by remaining united to the vine;(cf. Jn 15:1–5; Gal 5:22–23) likewise, the Christian gradually becomes capable of patient, sacrificial love by remaining rooted in Christ .  Prayer brings them back to the Source. We do not merely pray because we need God; we pray so that God's love may increasingly become the love with which we meet others. Yet He places love immediately beside prayer because prayer that truly encounters God eventually becomes responsible for another human being. The soul enters prayer alone but should not emerge alone. It returns carrying names, wounds, families, enemies, forgotten people, priests, sinners, the dying, the unborn, and souls whose existence it may never know. Moses discovered this mystery when Israel's sin became something he carried before God rather than merely something he condemned (cf. Ex 32:30–32). Job prayed for his friends after enduring their misunderstanding, and his own restoration became mysteriously connected with intercession for those who had wounded him (cf. Job 42:7–10). This is a profound form of spiritual maturity: the heart ceases asking only, “Lord, what will You do for me?” and begins asking, “Lord, whom are You asking me to carry?” The Catechism teaches that intercession is a prayer of petition that conforms us to Christ's own prayer for humanity (cf. CCC 2634–2636). A mother praying over a sleeping child, a priest kneeling before an empty tabernacle, a farmer praying before beginning his work, a student praying for a troubled classmate, or an elderly person offering a Rosary for unknown sinners may therefore become hidden bearers of souls. Prayer is where God secretly teaches one heart to become spacious enough for many hearts.

Then comes the command that exposes whether prayer has truly enlarged us: “love one another.” Jesus does not say merely to admire one another, agree with one another, or remain pleasant toward one another. He asks for the difficult charity by which one person's salvation becomes important to another person even when affection is absent. Consider the obscure figure of Abigail (cf. 1 Sam 25:23–35). She recognized that David's wounded honour was about to become violence and intervened before blood was shed . Her love was not passive kindness; it entered another person's anger and prevented destruction. Consider also Jonathan, who loved David enough to surrender his own prospects of kingship rather than allow jealousy to govern him (cf. 1 Sam 18:1–4; 20:30–34). Love becomes most supernatural when it protects another person's good at a cost to our own preference. A supervisor can protect an employee from unjust blame. A priest can refuse to ridicule a penitent's repeated weakness. A wife can interrupt a cycle of retaliation by becoming silent long enough to pray before answering. A young person can refuse to participate in humiliating someone on social media. A sibling can visit the relative whom everyone else has abandoned. St. Isaac the Syrian's vision of mercy reaches toward this astonishing interior freedom: another person's weakness is no longer an opportunity for superiority but a summons to compassion. The Catechism(cf. CCC 1827) calls charity the bond of perfection because it orders the entire Christian life toward communion with God and neighbour . The person who tests your capacity to love may be revealing the precise place where your prayer still needs conversion.

The words “I ask many to help souls to return to Me” reveal another hidden dimension: Christ does not merely ask us to bring people into religious activity; He asks us to help them return to Him. Return implies that something has been lost: innocence, trust, prayer, sacramental life, vocation, truth, hope, or the sense of God's presence. The prodigal son’s return begins with an interior awakening: before he can repair what has been broken, he must first dare to believe that the Father’s house remains open to him (cf. Lk 15:17–24; Rom 2:4). Many souls stay away from Confession not because they consider sin insignificant, but because shame has persuaded them that they are no longer worthy of mercy . Some young people withdraw from prayer not because they reject God, but because prolonged suffering and unanswered questions have obscured His nearness . Some priests experience deep exhaustion not because their love for Christ has disappeared, but because even those who carry others need moments of renewal, fraternity, rest, and prayer . A Christian may therefore participate in another person’s return simply by making the possibility of return visible. A patient listener, a sincere invitation to Confession, a Rosary offered for someone who has stopped praying, or a gentle word after a painful failure can become a small doorway through which grace is recognized again . Philip approached Nathanael not by forcing him into an argument, but by leading him toward an encounter with Jesus (cf. Jn 1:43–51). Likewise, Andrew brought Simon into Christ’s presence (cf. Jn 1:40–42), and the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:28–30, 39–42) became a witness through whom others were drawn toward Jesus. Sometimes evangelization begins by becoming living evidence that God’s mercy is still waiting at the door . The Samaritan woman(cf. Jn 4:7–30, 39–42) returned to her town carrying testimony after Christ had reached the hidden wound beneath her public life . The Gerasene man(cf. Mk 5:1–20) who had been isolated among the tombs became a witness among his own people after encountering Christ . St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi’s intense concern for the conversion and renewal of souls reveals how contemplative love can become deeply missionary without becoming noisy. A heart immersed in God cannot remain indifferent to those who are far from Him. The Catechism(cf. CCC 863–865) teaches that every Christian participates in Christ’s mission according to his or her vocation and circumstances . Thus a parent, nurse, farmer, student, religious, mechanic, lawyer, catechist, prisoner, contemplative, or priest can become a keeper of the door through which another soul quietly returns to Christ—sometimes through a word, sometimes through patient presence, sometimes through hidden sacrifice, and sometimes through a prayer known only to God.

But Jesus' command to love one another reaches its highest intensity when love becomes a form of spiritual warfare against the fragmentation caused by sin. The devil divides; Christ gathers. Sin isolates; charity restores communion. Bitterness creates invisible prisons in which two people can remain physically close while spiritually separated. Prayer begins breaking those walls because it brings the other person into the presence of God before bringing the person into our argument. The two disciples travelling to Emmaus were walking away from the community in disappointment, but Christ entered their conversation and gradually restored their understanding (cf. Lk 24:13–35). Onesimus' story reveals the Gospel entering a relationship marked by social inequality and transforming the possibility of domination into Christian brotherhood (cf. Philem 10–16). The four men who carried the paralytic teach another astonishing form of love: when the suffering person cannot reach Jesus by himself, other people can carry him (cf. Mk 2:1–5). Sometimes loving someone means carrying them in prayer until they can walk toward Christ for themselves. This has extraordinary practical consequences. Offer up prayers for the alcoholic who declines assistance. Offer up prayers for the family member who has left the church.  Pray for the priest whose weaknesses scandalize you. Pray for the child who has stopped speaking. Pray for the colleague who envies you. Then ask what concrete act of charity corresponds to that prayer. Perhaps a phone call. Perhaps an apology. Perhaps financial assistance. Perhaps patient silence. Perhaps truthful correction. Perhaps simply refusing to speak maliciously about the person. St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac demonstrated that charity must eventually acquire hands and feet. A prayer that asks God to help someone while refusing every opportunity to help that person ourselves has not yet reached its full apostolic maturity.

The deepest word in the Appeal may therefore be “one another.” Jesus does not envision isolated saints competing for individual holiness. He envisions a humanity in which grace circulates from heart to heart through prayer and charity, like blood through one living body . Your holiness can become another person's shelter; another person's fidelity can become your strength. A hidden nun may pray for a missionary. A missionary may baptize a child. That child may one day become a priest; that priest may hear the confession of a stranger who returns to God and reconciles with his family; that family may raise a child who later becomes a physician serving the poor. One hidden act of prayer can therefore become the beginning of a chain of grace whose final fruits may remain unknown to us until eternity . Heaven alone may know the complete genealogy of a single prayer. This is the mystical dimension of the communion of saints (cf. CCC 946–962). St. Thérèse of Lisieux discovered an apostolic universality hidden within a life apparently confined to Carmel. St. Josephine Bakhita transformed suffering received into a life of forgiveness and witness. St. André Bessette became an instrument of consolation through apparently humble service. Their lives expose our earthly obsession with measurable influence. Jesus may be asking you to do something whose fruit you will never see. Perhaps the most important prayer you will ever pray will be offered when you are tired and nobody knows you prayed. Perhaps the person you patiently love today will carry that memory for decades and return to Christ because of it. Perhaps your forgiveness will prevent bitterness from entering another generation. Pray more until another person's salvation becomes part of your daily concern. Love one another until another person's wound becomes impossible for you to ignore. Then prayer will cease being an escape from humanity, and love will cease being merely human affection. The two will become one movement of Christ's own Heart: ascending toward the Father in prayer and descending toward wounded humanity in mercy. And perhaps this is precisely what Our Adorable Jesus desires when He asks us to make people pray more and love one another: that the earth may quietly begin to resemble heaven—not through extraordinary achievements, but through one praying heart, one forgiven wound, one hidden sacrifice, and one act of love at a time. As prayer draws the soul toward God, charity makes His presence tangible among His children .

Prayer

Our Adorable Jesus, teach us to pray until we carry souls before You, and to love until their wounds become our concern. Expand our hearts beyond preference, resentment, and convenience. Make our ordinary prayers and hidden charities channels of Your grace, reconciling divided hearts and gently leading wandering souls back home. Amen.

Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.