Praying en masse
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- Published on Tuesday, 15 February 2011 06:02
- Written by John Draper
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If a group of people pray, does god pay more attention than to just one person? Or if you are a Catholic, is it better to get the ear of your favourite saint? At least two of the Churches in Cobourg seem to think it's good to get others to pray for your cause. The Cobourg Alliance Church say on their web site: "If you would like the prayer team to pray for any request you might have or would like any information regarding prayer at CAC, you can email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call the church office at 905-372-2311." And the Cobourg Fellowship Baptist Church provides not only group prayer but also prayers for a private cause. They say " Indicate if this is a Private Request or if it is for the Church Membership prayer news". So they are saying to god: "you seem to be ignoring him/her but would you please go listen to our parishioner in need". It's not just Cobourg - USA Today reports that 40% of Protestant Churches in the U.S. do the same. This is helped by the fact that "most Protestant Churches (78%) have websites, including all the churches with more than 500 members and more than half of the smaller churches. That's up from 53% overall in 2006."
Of course the unspoken requirement is that god be able to read the minds of all the people praying and for that matter, remember to tune in and take notice of people praying en masse. You'd think that god would be more impressed and likely to pay attention to groups of people praying (practising their thought projection skills).
But Catholics have a better idea. They seem to think it's obvious that there is a hierarchy of people - the holier you are, the more likely that God will listen. And a dead person is obviously closer to god than a live person - assuming they "made it". In addition, some saints are so busy, they don't have time to listen to everyone's prayers but maybe if you can catch one who's just arrived in heaven, you'll have a better chance of success. That's why people pray to the likes of Pope John Paul II. The Pope has been credited with a miracle with the "cure" of Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre. Two months after John Paul's death, the nun claimed she woke up feeling cured of her disease. The nun and the others in her order had prayed to John Paul, who also suffered from Parkinson's. I guess the newly dead Pope had already managed to get past the billions of others in heaven and get the ear of god.
I still have a hard time with this "reading minds" thing. Not only does god read the mind of the billions of people on earth but so do the saints. Are dead people suddenly empowered with abilities their souls did not have when they were alive?
Anyway, back to the protestants who pray en masse. If god pays more attention to groups of people, that has to be one of the benefits of belonging to a Church. You can get people to pray for you and change your world. Even if it doesn't do anything for you (and it won't), it's got to feel good to think that there are others who care enough to spend time on you. For an atheist, it would be like having lots of visitors or get-well cards when you are sick. Come to think of it, even for Christians, I would think that get-well cards would be better than knowing people are "thinking" prayers but not actually doing anything.