Those Christians in Jerusalem 20 years before did not and could not foresee the full answer to their prayer.  They asked for what they believed was in accordance with God’s will and Peter was indeed released, but not for his own sake – rather for the sake of the Lord and of his worldwide Church which he built on the foundation of Peter the Rock.

Thus this incident of St Peter’s Chains illustrates the true purpose of prayer and the true purpose of life: in the one we seek God’s will and in the other we do God’s will.  So the prayer, “Thy will be done” is not a sigh of passive resignation.  Far from it.  It is a request – positive, active, purposeful.  It means in general, “thy will be done” in the world at large and in the Church; and in particular “thy will be done” for me (in the providential ordering of my life); in me (within my heart); and by me (in the service of God and of my fellow human beings).

For some, such as those engaged in the Church’s Ministry, that two-fold service of God and of one’s fellows for the most part runs along the same road without any sharp line of demarcation.  For the majority, however, while it runs on the same road it is distributed between two adjoining lanes.  In the one we live and work in the world, not as children of the world but as God’s children, and as such we are charged by Our Lord to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works and glorify, not us, but our Father who is in Heaven (Matthew 5:16).

St Peter himself, writing from Rome to the Christians in Asia Minor a year or so before his martyrdom, made the same point.  The Christians were living in a pagan world and he urged them to see to it that their way of life was exemplary.  “Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles,” he told them, “so that in case they speak against you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God…” (Catholic edition RSV, 1 Peter 2:12).