Prayer in Time of Need

 

We pray you, O God, be our help and protection.

Save the afflicted among us, have mercy on the lowly

Raise up the fallen, show yourself to those in need.

St. Clement of Rome (ca AD 95-96)

It is interesting to note that a prayer written in the first century can be so relevant today with wars and conflicts around the world. There are so many violent deaths and desperate people who live in fear and danger -- so much pain and suffering. Countries try to bring aid to the destitute and devastated in so many places, but the help is never sufficient.

Sometimes prayer does not seem to change situations. People are still suffering, and children still go hungry. With so many afflicted and needy around us, I t is easy to become disheartened and hopeless. We can give up in despair, or we can keep praying and reaching out in any way we can.

God does not always answer our prayers in the way we would like. When we pray for someone to get well and he or she dies, we have to trust that God has a better plan. When we pray that a certain person will be elected and he or she loses, God may have another way of responding. Things might grow worse without good people taking action and without our prayers.

St. Clement’s prayer for help and protection, for healing and mercy, still seems fitting twenty-three centuries later. We know how helpless we sometimes feel, how urgent the needs are. It seems that in every age there are turmoil and evil forces that threaten our world. That’s why when the world seems to be falling apart, we need to pray. We need to pray as if our lives depended on it, and very often they do.