It’s unusual for an article dedicated strictly to prayer and what can help a person take up a full page in the opinion section of a major newspaper. This happened with the article by Miguel Ángel Robles, published in ABC Sevilla under the title “Pray for Me.”

Robles holds a PhD in Information Sciences from the University of Seville and has worked in various media outlets such as ABC, Europa Press, Canal Sur, and Huelva Information.

“Praying, and above all, having someone pray for you, is the greatest aspiration one can have in life. An immense privilege. It is loving someone enough to pray for them, and having someone love you enough to pray for you. Could there be greater pride? Could there be greater fulfillment?” the article states.

Each paragraph of the article begins the same: “Praying is…” For example, it’s healing wounds, mending scratches, and overcoming the damage done to you. Turning the page and starting over. Forgiving offenses and also asking for forgiveness. And above all, being grateful…

Praying is giving thanks for living and for what life has given you. It’s waking up with renewed hope. Desperately clinging to the immaterial. Remembering what truly matters and putting everything else into perspective. It’s establishing priorities, tidying up your desk, seeking transcendence, thinking big.

I’ll leave you with the first paragraphs of the article:

Pray for me

Praying is a conversation with those who are no longer here, the memory of those who came before you, and the prayer to follow their example. Praying is praying for them. And also praying to them for those of us who are here. It’s the calmest time of the day, and, in my case, first thing in the morning, just after six, with the hot shower water falling slowly on my shoulders. Praying is a sepia photograph, a return to your grandparents’ house and to the timeless time of your childhood. It’s passing by the Church of San Pedro on the way to school and praying an Our Father to the Christ of Burgos to help you through your exams. It’s refuge from the cold and a welcoming silence. Praying is having a memory.

Praying is what comes before or after work, and what never replaces it, because as the saying goes: pray to God and give it your all. It’s the only thing you can do when you can’t do more, and it’s the way for those with no other means to commit themselves, like when we pray for a patient who is about to undergo surgery and everything is already in the hands of the surgeon (and God). Prayer doesn’t work miracles, or if it does, we’ll never know, but it offers comfort to the one who prays and to the one for whom it is prayed. Prayer is never useless, because it always comforts.

To pray, that is, I will pray for you, and also pray for me. And it is, therefore, the opposite of vanity. To pray is to accept your limitations. It is to learn to resign yourself when what could have been has not been. It is to live without resentment, to learn to forget, to accept defeat with dignity, and to celebrate triumph with humility. To pray is to resignation when appropriate, but also to exultation and honor when necessary. It is to seek strength if you lack it and to trust that things will be as they should be. To pray is to be optimistic, to not give up on anything, to fight and resist, as in the song, standing tall in the face of everything, and that is my father before he died. To pray is to be fragility and fortitude.

Source: Solidarity and media

Read the full article in ABC de Sevilla