As I wrap up my second stint at Spaulding Rehab, I reflect upon the power of prayer in my life, especially during these past 15 months.
Of course, my parents taught me how to pray. They were both mighty good at it, although my grandmother may have had the most direct line. Because we went to public school (which meant that many assumed that our souls were in danger), we had Sunday School right after the 8:30 a.m. Mass in the Lower Church at St. Gregory’s, presided over by the Sisters of Notre Dame who came in various shapes and sizes but who were all very rigid in the way they approached our religious education. The Baltimore Catechism No. 2, a blue paperback, was required reading. We memorized the answers to a series of questions, the first of which was “Who made us?”
Then on Monday afternoons – it must have been unconstitutional, but nobody questioned it – children were dismissed early from the Charles H. Taylor School to walk down the street to St. Gregory’s where a priest would give us additional religious instruction.
Most everybody at our elementary school was either Catholic or Jewish. If a Jewish holiday fell on a Monday, there were not a lot of students left at school at the end of the day. My old friend Richard Clarke tells a wonderful story about his facing such a situation when he was in the fifth grade.
We learned to pray the way we learned to speak. “Owa fahthah who aht in heaven” because that is the way Cardinal Cushing taught us to pray when he said the Rosary on the radio and, whether it be in politics or religion, Cardinal Cushing could do no wrong.
How many times have the people who might be reading this article recited the Lord’s Prayer? So many believe it is a simple encapsulation of what many of us believe. It has been recited in an almost nonpartisan fashion for decades. Read sentence by sentence, it makes lots of sense.
Recently, I read the Pope Francis’s new volume, “Let Us Dream.” It was sent to me by an old friend in Rhode Island – a widow who goes to church regularly. The pope is very smart. That doesn’t mean that I agree with him on everything, but on most things, I think he gets it. He certainly understands the need for the world to change if it is to survive.
So many times during these past many months, when I have not been able to sleep at night, when getting my wounds attended to, when hoping that I could get through a mini-crisis with respect to pain or otherwise, I have recited the Lord’s Prayer. I have concluded it is as much on target today at it was when I first recited it over 65 years ago.
I am a better person because I pray. I am a better person because people have prayed for me, especially during these past 15 months. Perhaps, the world would be a better place if more people prayed in whichever way they feel comfortable.
Lawrence DiCara is a former Boston City Councillor and a native of Dorchester.
