There were 27 gathered in front of her porch, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, “holy books” in hand, surrounding the house of poverty “in their prayers.” They have gathered here for several weeks. The din of the gathering soon faded to a hushed silence. Then, one voice called for the joining of hands and the prayer to “end hunger in this house” began.

In the midst of that solemn moment, a stranger approached. With nerve - seeming disrespect and several mumbled “excuse me’s” - he boldly approached the line, quietly broke the circle and carrying several bags of groceries stepped onto the porch. With his right shoe he knocked on the door. It opened slowly. Without many words, he gave the bags to a thankful woman and left without grand gesture.

Throughout my lifetime I’ve witnessed the power of prayer whose fundamental nature is an empowering of self, a call to resolution. That is to say, prayer in itself is operative only in its power to set in motion God’s grace. God’s grace, in turn, is made possible through the actions of human love - love that enables promised/needed resolution. I’ve come to understand why God calls us to prayer. It is the embrace of prayer that awakens us to the poverty of the world - not only financial poverty, but the poverty of loneliness, injustice and rejection.

Through the power of prayer, I’ve come to realize God does not resolve human issues alone. Rather, God calls us, empowers us to be agents, partners of resolution. Prayer alone is simply grand gesture. Twenty-seven gathered for weeks “praying” for and end to the suffering within the house they encircled. Their prayer produced no resolution from the group.

It was an individual, a stranger to them, who became aware of the need - then, empowered by God’s grace purchased the food and put an end, albeit for the moment only, to the starvation. Was the prayer of the 27 “powerless?” Certainly not. It simply failed to “empower” them. For if it had, they could have “fed the hungry” several weeks earlier and provided resolution for weeks to come.

During my life, some assumed I have little faith in the “power of prayer.” That’s simply a foolish assumption. I share with you what I shared with them: humankind can gather and pray for resolution to poverty from now until the end of time, but until prayer empowers us to take action to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and heal the sick - as Christ’s wisdom revealed - “the poor will be with us always.”