Thursday, March 29, 2012

More Prayer for Lent

Everyone in our family has added a significant amount of prayer time to their schedule for Lent. I read this story from St. Gregory the Great, which expresses the marvelous effectiveness of praying the Mass:

"It seems to me, he says in one of his homilies, that many of you know the story I am going to tell you now.  It is said that not very long ago a man was taken prisoner by his enemies and led to a distant part of the country.  Since he was a long time there, and his wife did not see him coming home, she thought he was dead.  So she had Mass said for him every week.  And as many times as his wife had Mass offered for the forgiveness of his sins, on each occasion, the chains of his captivity loosened.  When he came back later to his own town, he told his wife with wonderment how on certain days of the week, the chains which bound him in his cell loosened by themselves.  When his wife thought of the times and the days this happened, she recognized that he was freed when the Holy Sacrifice was being offered for his soul, as far as she could remember.  Many chains are broken for us every day, thanks to the prayer of others."

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