Have we ever wondered if an invisible God really hears our prayers, especially if we have prayed and prayed and our intentions were never answered? That’s an excellent question, and it deserves to be answered. I will attempt to attack that question from different angles, from what Heaven has said, what priests, visionaries and others have said, and also from my own experiences.
Before getting involved with what all of that, let’s talk about prayer itself. Prayer is a conversation between two people, namely us and God, to whom we are simply talking to as a child would to their father. We get to know God through prayer, and it’s through prayer that we receive the roadmap to find our way home to the Kingdom. The Holy Spirit gives us the essential graces we need to seek Him in prayer. Always ask the Holy Spirit for those graces.
How do we pray? We are called to pray by lifting up our minds and hearts to God so that our prayer soars heavenward and touches God in the most loving way. This tells us that if we prayed only with our mind, which is where we multi-task, it would be so easy to get distracted in our prayer. But by adding our heart to the prayer, where love resides, then that love amplifies our prayer to Heaven in a powerful way. So now, how do we know that God hears and answers our prayers? Several Bible verse quotes can help us answer that question:
In Jeremiah 29:12, the Lord says: “When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you.”
The Lord appears to Solomon in 1 Chronicles 7:14 and said to him, “I have heard your prayers …”
Jesus speaking to His disciples in Mark 11:24 said, “Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.”
The Blessed Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, a many-decade active Marian apparition site, has given us wisdom from heaven into the power of prayer through her messages to the world:
“…Through prayer and faith, God will answer your every ‘why’ and transform your every pain, darkness and cross into light…” [December 25, 2019]
“…If you pray with the heart, dear children, the ice of your brother’s hearts will melt, and every barrier shall disappear…” [January 23, 1986]
“…Prayer is the only road which leads to peace. If you pray and fast, you will obtain everything you ask for.” [October 29, 1983]
“…prayer and fasting work miracles in you and around you…” [September 25, 2020]
Prayer was an integral part of Jesus’ time on earth, and He prayed regularly, and “…he would withdrew to deserted places to pray.” [Luke 5:16]. So if Jesus, the Incarnate One, needed to converse with the Father frequently, how much more does humanity need to do so? Jesus faced persecution, trials, heartache, and physical suffering. Without His prayer to the Father, He would surely have found those events unbearable.
During each of her six apparitions with the three children in Fatima during 1917, Our Lady told them to tell the faithful to pray the Rosary daily because she knew it was a powerful weapon she was giving us from Heaven to battle Satan and to make good things happen in the world.
Fr. Johnny, an Irish priest serving in Argentina, shared a wonderful story during his homily at the English Mass in Medjugorje on July 24, 2017: Before his last trip to Medjugorje, two years ago, he was packing to go to Argentina, throwing away lots of stuff, and came to his Holy Land rosary, which was missing a bead, and thought about purchasing one in Medjugorje. He said to himself, “No – I have a set of beads. I don’t want any more stuff to be carrying to Argentina and I’ll stick with what I have.” While in Medjugorje, he visited Vicka, one of the visionaries there. Later in that day, his guide presented to him a gift from Vicka. It was a special rosary that Vicka presented to Our Lady for a blessing and had it blessed by a priest as well. In that afternoon, he went to the Adoration Chapel with his new beads and asked the Lord, “What message do You have for me by giving me these new beads?” Almost immediately, the words that came into his heart were, “Every Hail Mary counts.” He was bowled over by the awesome reality that he had been praying his old rosary with the one bead missing.
During a rodeo, Freddie Vest, a calf-roping rider, had a heart attack, fell off his horse, and had an out-of-body experience of meeting Jesus. In his book “The Day I Died,” he describes how Jesus allowed him to witness an amazing sight. He saw the thousands of prayers, as bolts of light coming into Heaven, by the people at the rodeo praying for him as he lay dead. He said that if he saw the prayers, Jesus did too, and He heard them. Directly after this witness, Jesus returned him to earth, and after his recovery, has been able to share his testimony.
Many years ago, I heard Ivan Dragicevic, one of the visionaries in Medjugorje, speak in California. In his talk, he said something like, “You Americans will pray seven times or seventeen times for something and nothing happens, so you stop praying. Keep praying.” I brought his words to my next prayer group meeting. One of the women there shared a profound story: One of her dear friends was married for 60 years, and was married to a man who wanted nothing to do with religion. So she prayed for him every day for many years of their marriage. Guess what? Two weeks before he died, he said he wanted to be baptized, she saved his soul. Now that is persistence in prayer, and that is what we are called to do for any intentions that we are praying for, and trust that God hears every single prayer and each one counts. Also, let’s remember that prayer is a test of faith!