God Listens
Personal Stories of Answered Prayers
God Listens
Personal Stories of Answered Prayers
By Lorene Hanley Duquin
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division
Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.
Huntington, Indiana 46750
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible — Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright © 1965, 1966, 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America copyright © 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. — Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica copyright © 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. — Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
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Copyright © 2017 by Lorene Hanley Duquin. Published 2017.
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All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts for critical reviews, no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without permission from the publisher. For more information, visit: www.osv.com/permissions.
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750; 1-800-348-2440
ISBN: 978-1-68192-093-1 (Inventory No. T1830)
eISBN: 978-1-68192-094-8
LCCN: 2017952712
Cover design: Tyler Ottinger
Cover art: Shutterstock
Interior design: Dianne Nelson
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
About the Author
Lorene Hanley Duquin is a Catholic author and lecturer. She lives in Williamsville, New York, with her husband, Richard. They have four adult children and eight grandchildren.
To my grandchildren — Colin, Ellie, Patrick, Lilia, Alaina, John, Mark, and James — with the hope that you will grow up to be people of prayer.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: God Listens … God Answers
CHAPTER 2: “Lord, Teach Us to Pray”
CHAPTER 4: “If Today You Hear His Voice …”
CHAPTER 8: Praying with Our Lady
CHAPTER 11: To Forgive and to Be Forgiven
CHAPTER 14: Unanswered Prayers
CHAPTER 15: When Someone Is Dying
CHAPTER 16: The Prayers of Others
Introduction
This is a book about answered prayer. It illustrates how Catholics pray in a lot of different ways and in a lot of different situations. It shows how God responds to those prayers in ways that are sometimes ordinary and sometimes extraordinary.
In reflecting on why there is a need for a book like this, my editor, Mary Beth Baker, suggested:
God is so close to us. Sometimes we have to see him acting in other people’s lives to be reminded of that. God listens and more than listens; he is constantly at work in our lives, through our lives, for our good and the good of everyone we meet. This book is a reminder of that fact, and a call to each of us to open our hearts to God in prayer, trusting that he’s hearing every word and answering in his own way, even if it’s not the way we might think we want. Ultimately, his answers to our prayers are always directed to one thing: to bring us to a place where we can live in deeper union with him.
