Halt Your Mind in the Truth: How to Pray in a Time of Worry
“Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” – St. Pio of Pietrelcina
Easy for you to say, Padre Pio. Me, I’ve been doing a lot of all three lately, and if I’m being honest with myself, there have been many moments when the amount of worry has exceeded both the prayer and the hope. It’s sometimes hard to pray with hope in worrying times.
Padre Pio, the twentieth-century stigmatic priest who lived through two world wars, and a global pandemic (the Spanish Flu) must have understood this. And yet he has the faith to say “Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”
Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like my prayer is just me verbalizing my anxiety these days, or worse, I find myself not even being able to focus on prayer over the distraction of worry. Not good, says Padre Pio.
“The reason you cannot meditate,” he says, “is mainly because you begin to meditate with anxiety, in search of something to gladden your spirit.” He’s right – I bring my anxiety to my prayer with the expectation of being consoled and relieved, which is fine, but according to Padre Pio, “this is not enough to find what you seek.”
According to Padre Pio, we must go one step further: “The only remedy I know of is to abandon anxiety.”
Once again, this is easier said than done, but Padre Pio gives us some solid advice: “Halt your mind in the truth about which you are meditating.”
For me, “halting my mind” means that I try to take a moment to stop the swirling worry and sit in the truth that God is, ultimately, Hope. I read the Gospel, and I enter in, as best I can, abandoning anxiety, and clinging to the truth that Christ is Emmanuel – God with us – then, today, and always. I halt my mind, take a breath, and try to remember Padre Pio’s words to pray, hope, and let go of worry, at least for a while.
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In this context, a group of us visited the Basilica of San Clemente to see the Tree of Life mosaic, which dates from the 12th century. At the mosaic’s center is an emaciated Jesus Christ crucified, giving his life on the cross. From Christ’s side flows blood and water that fall on and nourish the tree of life (Gen. 2: 9-14, Rev 22). From the tree, sprouts a vine whose branches extend and connect medieval figures from every walk of life, and with them all of creation (John 15:1, 4-5). There are twelve white birds perched on the cross representing the apostles who will take the message of salvation to the ends of the earth (Mat. 28:19).