The Healing Journey

June 3, 2026

“Work as if everything depends on you. Pray as if everything depends on God.”
— St. Ignatius Loyola

We live in a strange age, when secular society looks down on spiritual practices. In recent years, there’s been a trend to belittle people who use terms like “You’re in my thoughts and prayers.”

You’ll find that attitude is common. And while there is some debate about how efficacious “thoughts” are, prayer does immeasurable good, which we know of … and infinitely more that we won’t learn about until the next life, when we’ll see firsthand the countless benefits that Jesus brought out about by our simple prayers.

The internet has hundreds of memes that criticize people who say, “You’re in my thoughts and prayers.” Some of them are offensive, most of them are just plain stupid, and all of them are intended to make people believe prayer is ineffective.

So what’s to be done about people who deride prayer? Only one thing. Pray for them. As St. Teresa of Calcutta said: “Souls without prayer are like people whose limbs are paralyzed. They possess them but can’t control them.”

If you believe prayer works, then you have to do a lot more praying. A study by Pew Research Center about the religious belief in America found that more than half of adults pray every day, while less than a quarter seldom or never pray. And those who pray don’t necessarily have a religious affiliation, the study discovered. Twenty percent of the religiously unaffiliated pray every day while 18 percent pray weekly or monthly.

That’s good news. Secular society may deride prayer, but people who pray know innately that it works, because God has given them that assurance. So never hesitate to tell someone: “You’re in my thoughts and prayers,” and even “You’re in my prayers.”
©J Pisani

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