Don’t you feel our prayers? 

“Don’t you feel our prayers?” she asked.

 “I do, Mom, I feel them,” and I thought about this for a second. Maybe it was others’ prayers strengthening me, keeping me afloat…. I replayed that call hundreds of times in my head — my mother’s voice, the names of my friends, her knowledge of our situation, her absolute belief in the power of prayer. … I knew I wasn’t alone.”

(Catholic Journalist James Foley recounting his 2011 hostage experience in Libya https://www.aleteia.org/2014/08/20/slain-journalist-james-foley-on-the-power-of-prayer-during-captivity/ )

God has an interesting way of bringing things into my ‘radar’. Twelve years ago, I wrote about Catholic journalist James Foley. Sadly, I had forgotten it until God brought it before me now. August 19^th is the 12^th anniversary of his execution, beheaded by ISIS after nearly two years of captivity. His crime? Providing the world with pictures of the true reality of suffering in war-torn Syria. 

Two years earlier he had been held captive in Libya and eventually released. He wrote of the importance of being in prayer with us, the Church militant. This experience as a hostage in Libya taught him the power of prayer. And perhaps God used that time of imprisonment to prepare him for the suffering to come. 

“I prayed she’d know I was OK. I prayed I could communicate through some cosmic reach of the universe to her. 

I began to pray the rosary. It was what my mother and grandmother would have prayed. 
I said 10 Hail Marys between each Our Father. It took a long time, almost an hour to count 100 Hail Marys off on my knuckles. And it helped to keep my mind focused.” https://www.aleteia.org/2014/08/20/slain-journalist-james-foley-on-the-power-of-prayer-during-captivity/

In that first captivity, he simply followed the witness of his mother and grandmother. We never know when the seeds planted today will sprout tomorrow, nor the circumstances under which it will happen, nor the depth to their growth. From that first kidnapping in 2011 to his final letter home to his family, we are given a glimpse into that growth: 

“I know you are thinking of me and praying for me. And I am so thankful. I feel you all especially when I pray. I pray for you to stay strong and to believe. I really feel I can touch you even in this darkness when I pray.“  https://web.archive.org/web/20150103032426/http://freejamesfoley.org/

The truth is, he could. In contemplation, in the communion of saints, our souls unite through Christ. 

It’s important for us to revisit these tragedies, especially to always make present the memory of how God’s glory shined even in the darkest moments. Keeping the faith keeps God’s light of glory alive in us. Through us, He reaches those around us. Foley demonstrated being the carrier of this light to fellow hostages in both imprisonments. Most certainly seeds were planted in them too. 

We also see a model of how to focus on the issue not the ideology. Twelve to twenty years ago, Al Jazeera and other media of the terrorists would broadcast the executions of hostages as they did Foley’s. Fast forward several years, and Al Jazeera successfully positioned itself to be the ‘trusted’ news source on every continent in the world. How short our memories are; how consumed we are with finding the quickest sensationalism to gratify our emotions that we don’t want to be bothered with checking its source. How easily manipulated we’ve become. And perhaps the worst fruit is that, by-and-large, people don’t care if they are being manipulated by the media they consume. 

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. …Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:4, 8)

How might we change, and by that the world around us, if we allowed God to have this tight a hold on us rather than the media and its preferred ideologies? The latter skews our perception of the world and of God. Its tentacles invade every aspect of our life and our thinking. Rather than growing in the likeness of God we become like them: the commentators, the newscasters, the mechanical voices in AI videos telling us what we want to hear. The examen prayer becomes important to rooting out attitudes and opinions, and later in mental prayer talking with God about their source. It is important to remaining in this communion of saints. After all, the only opinion which matters is God’s and the only appropriate attitude to hold is that of His Spirit’s. 

I will be their secure refuge during life, and especially at death.

(Promise #4 of the Sacred Heart of Jesus)

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam 😊

Prayer, Under the Pressure Of Violent Anguish

     O Thou Great Being! what Thou art,

     Surpasses me to know;

     Yet sure I am, that known to Thee

     Are all Thy works below.

     Thy creature here before Thee stands,

     All wretched and distrest;

     Yet sure those ills that wring my soul

     Obey Thy high behest.

     Sure, Thou, Almighty, canst not act

     From cruelty or wrath!

     O, free my weary eyes from tears,

     Or close them fast in death!

     But, if I must afflicted be,

     To suit some wise design,

     Then man my soul with firm resolves,

     To bear and not repine!

(Robert Burns)

(Image of James Foley from the James Foley Foundation)