Our Prayers Can Help Change the World

by Sarah-Leah Pimentel · January 25, 2017

(CNS photo/Katie Breidenbach)

I have a confession to make. I am not very good at praying the rosary. Despite of my best efforts, my mind often wanders.

When I am on my own, I lose count of how many Hail Marys I’ve said or forget to move my fingers along the rosary beads. Sometimes that my decade has as many as 20 Hail Marys and it has taken me an hour to get through one decade, never mind one mystery!

When I pray in a group, I become overwhelmed by the sheer speed at which the prayers are said that I lose the desire to pray.

The only time I can successfully pray the rosary is when I suffer from insomnia, and even then, I find it is a very good remedy for getting me to fall asleep!

Despite my failings with this powerful and traditional Catholic prayer, it is a beautiful way of praying with Mother Mary for the intentions of the world. It was the prayer Our Lady asked the three children at Fatima to pray at a time when the history of the Western world seemed to hang in the balance, in that last year of the First World War.

This year we celebrate the centenary of the apparitions in Fatima. It would be good for us to remember the message of Fatima when the world seems to be standing at a dangerous crossroads once more.

Our Lady chose three unimportant, poor children from a rural backwater, far from the seat of political, military or economic power, and invited them to become instruments for the conversion of the world.

From this forgotten place in the far corner of Western Europe was born a renewed commitment to prayer, particularly the rosary, with a specific intention: for evil to be overcome and the world to once again turn to the love of God.

It is so easy to become discouraged in our efforts to work for the greater good when we consider our own smallness in the face of the massive challenges that assail the world. In times like these, it is good to remember the three children of Fatima. Useless in the eyes of the world. Precious in the eyes of God. Powerful instruments in the hands of Our Lady.

The visionary children of Fatima, standing outside the home of Francisco and Jacinta in Aljustrel, Portugal.

Similarly, we are not helpless victims of the injustices of our world; we are God’s instruments to raise up an army of prayer that can overcome evil.

Many years after the apparitions at Fatima, St John Paul II was able to reveal to the Church and the world that the promise of Fatima had indeed come true. Through prayer, the world can be transformed. The greatest evil of the 20th century was the secularisation of society and efforts by totalitarian governments to eradicate religion.

It is worth remembering that when Our Lady first appeared to Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta in May 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia had not yet happened (that event took place 12 days after the final apparition, in October that year). So the world could not even imagine how devastating communist rule would become, or how it would divide the world in two, or how the effects of the Cold War would be felt so deeply in Europe, America, and Africa.

Yet, communism was overcome. Yes, there were political efforts that helped to destroy the Berlin Wall and eliminate many other walls and fears that the world had lived with for 40 years. But just as important was the prayer of millions of people throughout the world who heeded the call and message of Fatima — the silent and invisible power that helped those walls to crumble.

As the world once again grows dark and we are afraid of what the future holds, let us embrace the message of Fatima and renew our efforts to pray for the transformation of the hatred that permeates the nations into love.

I will devote the next four editions of this column to opportunities for prayer — by focusing on the forgotten conflicts and social injustices that the media often overlooks. By telling the stories of the people at the heart of political, military and economic conflicts, I hope that it will be a call for us to pray for the world, so that our hearts can truly be ready to celebrate the 100 years of the promises and miracles of Fatima.

A beautiful prayer from 1984 by St John Paul II which sums up what I have been discussing here. It is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it.