Stay and Pray with Me: St. Genevieve & the Power of Prayer

Stay and Pray with Me: St. Genevieve & the Power of Prayer

by Elizabeth Hamonko, Contributing Writer

Think about what you last prayed for.

The majority of us start out our prayer life asking for tangible, immediate things. Perhaps it’s a new toy or a new job, depending on whether you grew up in the faith or converted as an adult. No matter what age you are or what needs you have, this kind of prayer comes rather naturally–a need is there, and you’re aware that God is available to answer, so you place this need before Him, hoping for a positive reply.

Although we should never stop asking for these daily necessities from God, when this kind of prayer becomes routine, we may miss an invitation to dive deeper into what prayer is and why it’s key to living close to Our Lord.

From a purely utilitarian point of view, one could think of prayer as a means of pleading for a single specific cause at a specific point in time–and it often is used that way! The most common prayer is the “petitionary prayer” and it’s the one we are likely most emotionally attached to when first learning about God.

However, as we venture deeper and deeper into our faith lives, more questions start to develop.

After all, if God knows everything, why would He bother to hear and talk to us? What good does prayer do, exactly? With these questions in mind, it can be tempting to undervalue this lifeline and assume that only tangible actions in real life matter.

A Relationship, Not Just a Tool

As wittily said by St. Francis de Sales, we need to aim for roughly half an hour of prayer each day–unless we’re busy, and then we need a full hour. There’s humor in this statement, but there’s also a lot of truth.

Not only does purposefully setting this time aside make it easier to build a prayer routine, but it also allows us to build a relationship with God. Even Our Lord set aside time to pray in Gethsemane before His Passion. Beyond mirroring how we as humans should pray to God, He also shows us why prayer is not just a mechanical action for a specific end, but also a relationship that we rely on when challenges threaten us.

It’s in this element of prayer that we truly grow the most, although it’s often the most overlooked as well.

Stay and Pray with Me

In the year AD 451, St. Genevieve was a peasant girl-turned-nun living in Paris. Hearing news of the Huns potentially coming to invade the city soon, the citizens at this time were full of fear about what steps to take next. Many of them were on the verge of leaving their homes and fleeing.

Instead of giving in to this anxiety, St. Genevieve sought the support of the local Archbishop and gathered the people together to give them the instruction to pray for the warriors to pass by without harming the city.

Being told to stay in place and rely solely on prayer for safety amid the terrifying news of an invading army coming closer must have seemed almost impossible for some citizens. Perhaps some were immediately trusting of St. Genevieve, but many probably felt like it would have no effect at all.

This story in the saint’s life shows that we need a sense of radical reliance on God beyond just wanting to accomplish a goal when approaching prayer. It would have been more purely utilitarian (and maybe less anxiety-inducing) for everyone to pack up and leave while praying in a sort of last-ditch effort in case the invasion did happen. However, St. Genevieve and the villagers of Paris were called to place prayer at the center of their actions.

It echoes the words Our Lord tells us in the Bible:

Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. (Philippians 4:6)

Although it’s human nature to doubt, God calls us for more. This is not because He does not want us to take concrete steps to improve our lives with our own choices (just the opposite, in fact!), but because we are primarily called to grow in our faith and connection to Him first and foremost.

Beyond the Moment

The Huns did not attack Paris, instead changing course towards Orléans. St. Genevieve eventually became known as the patron saint of Paris. Would she be as well known today if she had not trusted in prayer as more than just a means to an end? Instead, she saw it as a channel for her relationship with God even when it looked like everything was going wrong.

Like St. Thomas Aquinas answered in the Summa Theologiae when asked about whether it’s worthless to pray when God’s mind is unchanging: 

Our motive in praying is, not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that, by our prayers, we may obtain what God has appointed.

Rather than fearing that our needs may not be taken care of or feeling overwhelmed that we are not in full control, God invites us to trust in Him as part of a growing relationship. Even if the worst event that we fear happens to us, we don’t have to despair and assume our prayers didn’t work and weren’t heard.

Although God sees all of time, He allows us to have free will to make choices from birth to the moment of death. We pray not only to obtain a certain end or goal, but also to change our hearts and minds. Thinking of prayer as just a simple wish list to hand to God can leave you wanting more from your faith life. As we transform our mindset about this, we can’t forget that true growth in faith requires an understanding that we’re in a relationship with God that extends beyond practical things.

This change may not even be perceptible when it happens. It’s very likely that we will start off laser-focused on a goal but realize along the way that Our Lord is leading us to something unexpected . . . and better than we realize.

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Due to a lifelong love for books and stories, Elizabeth Hamonko enjoys combining her passion for her faith with her enjoyment of writing. Together with a BS in Marketing and a BS in Management, her experience in freelance copywriting allows her to craft articles about anything from e-commerce to her Catholic faith. When she isn’t writing, she loves to run, attempt to bake, pray the Divine Mercy chaplet, and try all different kinds of coffee.