As I noted in the Crisis Point podcast yesterday, we seem to be living in apocalyptic times. Every week brings some new and horrific disaster, whether that be a new war breaking out or a new cataclysmic hurricane forming. Combine that with the heresy and corruption rampant in the Church and the insanity of our current election (have we already forgotten that one of the candidates has faced not one, but two assassination attempts?), and it’s enough to make one wonder whether we are living in the End Times.

I can’t answer that question, but I do think these happenings are a wake-up call for Catholics; specifically, a call to wake up and pray.

There’s lots of theories as to why the practice of Catholicism has fallen so dramatically in recent decades, and why the Western world has degenerated into paganism (and of course those two are not unrelated). Many of those theories have merit, but I would argue that a decline in prayer is a major part of the problem—and therefore an intensification of prayer is a major part of the solution.

Here at Crisis, author and spiritual theologian David Torkington has recently written a number of articles on the decline in mystical theology over the past few centuries, which he argues has in turn has led to a decline in prayer among Catholics. I think he’s identified an important cause of our culture’s—and our Church’s—decline. When a people do not pray, they cannot expect divine protection.

Some might balk at that last sentence, but it is biblical to the core. Many would think it means God is a petty tyrant, punishing us for the least mistake or sin: “You aren’t praying? Then here’s a hurricane to punish you!”

That of course is ridiculous. But Catholics have long believed that prayer really does impact our world, and a lack of prayer can lead to negative consequences in our lives. This isn’t Prosperity Gospel nonsense, but instead an understanding of how a loving Father works. A loving Father doesn’t indulge his children constantly, and when he sees a child following a wayward path, he often allows that child to experience the consequences of his actions in order to turn the child around.

When God removes His protection from us, it’s not primarily to punish us; instead, it’s to jolt us out of our complacency. And if there’s one thing the Catholic world became over time is complacent. Dramatic and traumatic events in our lives should—and often do—send us to our knees. We realize how dependent we are on God for everything in life, and so we turn to Him and ask for His assistance. Like the wayward child, we realize how much we need our Heavenly Father at all times. Times of prosperity often lead us to forget God’s central place in our lives, and the Western world has experienced prosperity beyond imagination in the past century.

So, again, I think the current apocalyptic events are a wake-up call to prayer.

Of course there are many ways to pray and many good devotions. One, however, in my mind stands above them all: the Rosary. Many Marian apparitions in the past century and a half have urged us to pray the Rosary daily, and I would argue that the Rosary is the devotion that heaven itself wants us to prioritize in our day and age.

My friend Joshua Charles, host of the Eternal Christendom podcast, apparently agrees. He just began The Great Rosary Campaign, which is “a yearlong Rosary campaign for the conversion of cultural leaders who are fallen away Catholics and non-Catholic Christians.” What an excellent idea! I encourage you to sign up to this campaign.

But no matter what you do, pray more. Pray of course for those in the path of war or natural disaster, and pray for those suffering under the ideological evils of our age. But also pray for the conversion of sinners (another common request of Marian apparitions) and pray for the Catholic Church. At the end of every traditional Low Mass, we pray for “the conversion of sinners and the exaltation of our holy Mother the Church.” This is an excellent intention for our Rosaries as well.

God is sending us a wake-up call: Will we hit the snooze alarm, or will we get up and pray?