Pater, Si Possibile Est: On Prayer In Times of Tragedy and Suffering

With these words did Our Lord entreat His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His arrest: “Mi Pater si possibile est transeat a me calix iste verumtamen non sicut ego volo sed sicut tu.”¹

Last week, the American people, the Archdiocese of Minneapolis, and indeed the entire Catholic Church, beheld a horrific tragedy: the martyrdom of two children, and the injuring of a dozen more, during the most sacred of actions – the Holy Mass – carried out by a villain who wrote his hatred of Our Lord and His Church upon the very weapons he used to inflict this unspeakable violence. In the wake of this ignominious crime, both Catholics and non-Catholics have offered their prayers for the victims and families of Annunciation Catholic Church and School. However, these calls to prayer have come under attack, most prominently by the mayor of the City of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, as well as former Biden-era White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, Governor of California Gavin Newsom, and other prominent left-leaning politicians. They cry from their high towers: “These children were literally praying as they got shot at”² and “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does [sic] not end school shootings.”³ This tidal wave of mockery and anti-Christian bigotry should not just give rise for concern among the Church in America, but also prompt in us the very question that the pagans jeer at us: why pray? After all, prayer did not protect these children from these atrocities, did it?

One must remember, first and foremost, that God, and prayer by extension, is not a spiritual ATM or slot machine. If one says the right prayers, pushes the right buttons, and believes the right things, one is not guaranteed success or safety in the world. Indeed, we are promised quite the opposite, as Our Lord reminds us in St. Matthew’s Gospel:

“Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you.”⁴

This may be so, some say, but how can one expect this of children? Surely, if the Lord is a loving God, He would preserve children who pray to Him from such horrors. Again, we need only look at Sacred Scripture. Were not the Holy Innocents, mere babes, slaughtered in droves by Herod’s bloodthirsty quest to find and destroy the Savior? Were not some of the greatest martyrs of the Early Church mere children upon their entry into eternal life? The true mark of a Christian is suffering in this world for the sake of the Gospel. If Our Lord suffered greatly despite His innocence, then we who are no greater than Him cannot expect anything less.

“Amen, amen I say to you: The servant is not greater than his lord;
neither is the apostle greater than he that sent him.”⁵

For was not Christ the most innocent, the most pure, the most worthy of preservation from death? Yet He, for our sake, underwent the cruelest and most humiliating death of all. He was rejected and condemned by His own people, forsaken by His apostles, crucified by foreigners, and hung between unrepentant criminals. He, too, on the night of His betrayal, prayed on the Mount of Olives. He beseeched His Father that this tribulation may pass from Him:

“My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.
Nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt.”⁶

He, too, was jeered, mocked, and ridiculed. Jew and Gentile alike taunted Him saying, “[P]rophesy unto us, O Christ, who is he that struck thee?”⁷ and “He trusted in God; let Him now deliver him if He will have him.”⁸ His enemies also believed that His prayers were in vain, and that God had not answered Him.

Yet throughout His bitter Passion, Our Lord never stopped praying that His Father would “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”⁹

Let this be our consolation in this time of grief and torment. Our Lord has grievously suffered, too. He, the foremost of the innocent, shed His Blood also. Let us then follow His example and pray those prayers which He first prayed in His agony and Passion. Finally, let us remember that Our Lord, in dying, triumphed over death itself. He – through his bitter Passion – crushed sin and death under His foot and did rise again on the third day. Let us be comforted knowing that these two children, taken from this world in hatred and malice, sit now amongst the choir of blessed martyrs in the heavenly host. Joining then with our prayers of grief, may we also look to Scripture yet again for a prayer celebrating the triumph of these two martyrs in Our Lord:

“I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me, walketh not
in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”¹⁰

1. Matthew 26:39, Vulgate. In English: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt” (see footnote 6). ↩︎
2. Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom). “These children were literally praying as they got shot at.” X, August 28, 2025, 2:49 PM (EST), https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/1961139199484330194. ↩︎
3. Jen Psaki (@jrpsaki). “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.” X, August 27, 2025, 11:47 AM (EST), https://x.com/jrpsaki/status/1960730977472237739. ↩︎
4. Matthew 5:12, Douay-Rheims. ↩︎
5. John 13:16, ibid. ↩︎
6. Matthew 26:39, ibid. ↩︎
7. Matthew 26:28, ibid. ↩︎
8. Matthew 27:43, ibid. ↩︎
9. Luke 23:24, ibid. ↩︎
10. John 8:12, ibid. ↩︎