This article was first published in The
Universe
How to Change the World
By Dwight Longenecker
The writer Evelyn
Waugh was a notoriously nasty character. He was grumpy.
He was rude. He was mischievous
and snobbish. He was also a Catholic. One day one of his
friends asked him how he could be a Catholic when he was
obviously such an old misery. Waugh replied that if he
weren’t a Catholic he would be far worse. ‘Besides,’ he
added, ‘without my faith I would have committed suicide
ages ago.’
It’s a good reminder that we can never
judge the effect of faith or the power of prayer simply
by outward appearances. We worship and pray, but sometimes
imagine that it doesn’t make a difference. Rest assured.
It always makes a difference—even if we can’t always see
what the difference is.
This Ash Wednesday
the pope has called on all us to fast and prayer with special
fervour. He wants
us to pray the rosary and fast for world peace. As the
world hurtles towards war we may well ask, ‘What good do
a few prayers do?’ It is difficult to answer that question
because we don’t always see how God answers prayer. Have
you ever considered how many prayers might be answered
every day, but the answer is never seen?
Perhaps the answers to many prayers are
never seen because something bad didn’t happen. Because
that bad thing didn’t happen we don’t know that our prayer
was answered. So, for example, think of all the airplanes
that don’t crash, the cars that stay on the icy road, the
children who are plucked from danger or the trains that
stay on the tracks even when there was a fault on the line.
We will never know how many miracles happen every day.
Maybe thousands of prayers for safety and deliverance from
danger take place every moment, but we’ll never know because
that terrible thing never happened. Because we cannot see
all the answers to prayer it is all the more reason to
pray fervently.
It is easy to see the problems
in the Middle East and think they have nothing to do with
us. The pope’s call to prayer
reminds us that peace is the responsibility of each one of
us. Despite his age and frailty he has taken many initiatives
to avoid this war and encourage a peaceful solution. His
action reminds each one of us that we can get involved and
work for peace too. Prayer and fasting this Ash Wednesday
can be an even more powerful force against war than millions
protesting across the world.
Thomas a Kempis wrote, ‘Why do you want to change the world
when you cannot change yourself?’ It follows that if we want
to change the world we should begin by changing ourselves.
But anyone who has tried to lose weight, quit smoking or
calm a nasty temper realises how difficult it is to really
change for good. Prayer opens our lives to God’s power of
change, and as we begin to change, the world really can change
too.
Can prayer change the world?
Yes, there are two ways prayer can change the world. The
first way prayer can change the
world is by changing individual people. Prayer changes me
for the better. It aligns my life with God’s life. It allows
God’s love to fill my life and flow through it. It helps
me fit in with God’s will in the world. In this way, as I
change, my world starts to change too. If this can happen
for one person, think how the world can be changed if everyone
were to pray more. If everyone were to say ‘Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven’ really mean it, and work to
conform their lives to that prayer, then the world would
be transformed. This worldwide change begins in our own hearts.
It moves out from there to our families, our communities
and eventually our whole world.
This is why the pope reminds us to pray. He realises that conflict in our own communities
and in our own hearts can also be avoided through prayer.
He said, "We Christians are called to be like
guardians of peace in the places where we live and work…we
are asked to be alert, so that consciences will not yield
to the temptation to egoism, falsehood and violence." The
first way to change the world, therefore, is to change
our own world, and the way to do that is to allow God to
change us on the inside.
The second way prayer changes
the world is through real spiritual power. When we pray
we align our human will with
God’s will. Think of the fantastic things that can be accomplished
when a human being puts their entire will into it. All the
great inventions, works of art and human accomplishments
have been done through the strength of the human will. The
human will is incredibly powerful, but when human will is
perfectly aligned to God’s will nothing can stop it. That
is why the gospels repeat the truth that with God nothing
is impossible. When we align our will with God’s great things
can happen, but when millions of people align their wills
with God’s will and with one another’s will, then a great
spiritual force can rise up. When millions pray for the same
thing then a spiritual force rises up like a huge tidal wave
to sweep away all the powers of evil and violence.
Can war be stopped in the Middle
East? Can a terrible catastrophe be avoided? Can the peace
and justice be established in the
Middle East? I believe so, but it will take an enormous surge
of prayer all over the world in order to turn the hearts
and minds of those who are intent on war. Ash Wednesday,
and the first days of Lent could be just the time for this
great tsunami of prayer to sweep the world, but unless ordinary
people like you and me join in, nothing will happen.
