What is prayer? Prayer is a lot of things. In that sense, prayer is always a big challenge. Prayer is opening to God. In prayer, I seek to open my mind and heart to him in whom "I live, move and have my being". Prayer is waiting for God to reveal himself to me. Prayer is talking to God about the nitty-gritty stuff in my life. In this, it is important to be as honest with God as we can. Prayer is longing for God. "As the deer longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you my God". (Psalm 42:2) Prayer is surrendering and letting go to God. This may well be the greatest challenge of prayer, to say with Jesus "Not my will, but your will be done." Prayer is connecting with God. Sometimes we may know someone for years but never connect with them. In a similar way we can say prayers for years but never really connect with God. Then we do. This is grace, but it is also the result of really wanting to connect with God. "When you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me" (Jeremiah 22:13-14). Prayer is wrestling with God (Gen 32:23-32). Prayer is a journey into the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.
Reflection Question: How would you finish this sentence: To me prayer is.......
The Prayer of Thanks. In one of the Prefaces sometimes read at Mass, we hear these words:
Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to your greatness, but, it makes us grow in your grace.
In the prayer of thanksgiving, we give thanks to God for his presence and activity in creation, in the lives of others, and in our own lives. We take time to name and thank him for our many blessings. Why is this so important? When we take time out to recognize and give thanks to God for what is good in life, we are not only recognizing God as the Source of all good things, but we also grow in our experience of God as a loving and generous person. Acts of gratitude help to deepen our relationship with God. Failure to connect God with the blessings in life may lead us to experience him as absent from our lives. Also, I firmly believe "grateful people are happy people." Grumblers are unhappy. An "attitude of gratitude" develops in us a general sense of well being.
Reflection Question: How important is the prayer of thanksgiving to you? Why do you think this type of prayer is very important?
The Prayer of Petition has to do with praying for our own spiritual, physical and material needs. It is not only one of the most common prayers, but also one of the most perplexing of prayers. I am sure that all of us wonder why some prayers are answered and others are seemingly ignored.
As we approach the prayer of petition we need to keep two things in mind. God is interested in our prayer. In other words, we are not praying to a reluctant or stingy God (see Luke ll:5-9). Second, we need to remember that the primary purpose of the prayer of petition is not for God to give us what we are asking for, but rather that through our prayers of petitions our relationship with God is deepened. If our primary focus is on us getting our needs met, we run the high risk of having only a utilitarian relationship with God. We only run to him when we are in trouble. No one, including God, likes to be used in that way. Over the years, lots of people have said to me "I never pray for myself." In my opinion that would be a huge mistake. Praying for our needs expresses our dependency on God. Failing to pray for ourselves would seem to be saying: "I don't need you God. Just help those other poor people." I assume none of us would ever want to think or act in that way.
What should we pray for?
First: We should pray that the number one passion in our lives is seeking and carrying out God's will insofar as we can discern it. "Incline my heart according to your will, O God" is a prayer that should be frequently on our lips.
Second: We should frequently, pray that we discover and become the unique person that God has created us to be. Two lines from a prayer that is on the elbow rest of my prayer chair says:
Third: Since all of us have a particular vocation in life (married, single, religious) and most of us have a particular career with duties, we should often pray that God will help us to be faithful to our vocation and duties in life.
Fourth: We should often pray for our own ongoing conversion.
Fifth: We should talk to God about the nitty-gritty stuff of our daily lives: help with a particular ailment, cross, or relationship, a promotion if it will not hurt our relationship with God or family etc.
The Problem of Unanswered Prayers
Why does God seem not to answer some of our prayers?
Few things can hurt our relationship with God more than the feeling that God is deaf to our prayers especially to concerns that are very important to us. There are lots of reasons why God may not answer our prayers in the way we want. The following are some of them. In my book, Prayer A Handbook for Today's Catholic, (P. 66-69) I expand on each of these reasons.
We ask with an unforgiving heart. (Mk 11:25)
We ask wrongly (James 4:3). We pray for a job that is not in God's plan for us.
We lack faith and perseverance.
We fail to do our part. We may pray for success in an exam, but fail to study.
We pray for reconciliation of a hurt but we do nothing to heal the conflict.
God may not answer our prayers as we would like him to, because "God's ways are not our ways." (Isaiah 55:8). For example, Jesus in Gethsemane, Paul's 'thorn in the flesh' (2 Cor 12: 7-10).
The following piece called The Weaver may help us as we struggle to accept some of God's strange ways and workings in our lives.
The Prayer of Intercession is prayer for others. In this prayer we enter into the pain of others and plead with God on their behalf. Speaking about this form of prayer, the late Fr. Anthony de Mello S.J. says to us:
It is only at the end of this world that we shall realize how the destinies of persons and nations have been shaped, not so much by the external actions of powerful people and by events that seemed inevitable, but by the quiet, silent, irresistible prayer of persons the world will never know.
A biblical example of intercessory prayer is Mary pleading with Jesus on behalf of the young couple at the wedding reception at Cana (John 2:1-12). Our intercessory prayers should have a global dimension and not be confined to family and friends. Prayers for government and church leaders, prayers for all involved in research for a cure for the diseases that inflict our human family, prayers for all who are suffering from sickness, violence, grief and their caregivers, prayers for those who daily work to alleviate the needs of the poor etc.
Reflection Prayer: Who or what makes it into your intercessory prayers? How global are your intercessory prayers?
The Prayer of Spiritual Reading.Spiritual reading is an excellent way for us to nurture our inner life. Good spiritual books can teach us much about prayer. When it comes to spiritual reading, we should use the book that speaks to us. The book that God uses to touch others may not be the book God will use to touch our heart. Also, a book that said nothing to us last year may say a bunch to us this year.
Spiritual reading is a specialized type of reading. It demands a particular mindset, or more accurately a particular heart-set. Spiritual reading is meditative and reflective. We read slowly and gently dwell on the sacred text. We pray for the Holy Spirit to help us to hear God speak to us through the text. In spiritual reading, the goal is to allow the sacred words to penetrate our being for the purpose of spiritual nourishment, illumination and direction of our lives.
A good spiritual book can jump start a dull prayer life. Recently, I was reading a book which had this line: "It is the desire for intimacy with God which makes our praying prayer." That one line touched my heart. I found myself returning to it for several days. I found myself translating that line into a one-liner prayer: "Jesus, fill me with a deep desire for you and your ways." Spiritual reading should lead to meditation and prayer. In other words, spiritual reading shouldn't be a 'head trip', but rather, a type of exercise that leads to communion and conversation with God.
Reflection Prayer: If you use a book in your prayer time, do you tend to read it as you would a novel or newspaper or do you read it in a prayerful reflective way? When something touches you, do you stop reading and spend time just being with the thought that touched your heart?
The Prayer of Quiet. The psalmist exhorts us to "be still and know that I am God." A medieval writer tells us: "while we rest in God, he works in us." It takes faith to believe in the quiet, unseen workings of God. Because we live in a very active society, there is a great danger that we bring that busyness into our prayer as well. We may even think we are not praying unless we are doing something like reading a book or saying prayers. By resting quietly in the presence of God we are recognizing that spiritual transformation is God's doing and not ours. On the other hand, when we spend all our time being active in prayer we are saying by our behavior that spiritual transformation is achieved by our efforts.
A few suggestions for the prayer of quiet. We can do Centering Prayer (made famous by the spiritual classic, Cloud of Unknowing). We sit and focus on one word, sometimes called a mantra e.g. love, peace, Jesus. Those of you drawn to this form of prayer will find Abbot Thomas Keating's book, Open Mind, Open Heart a big help. (publisher, Amity House, N.Y.)
A little more active form of this prayer could involve sitting quietly in God's presence and slowly repeating in our hearts one-liner prayers like:
"Jesus, I love you."
"Jesus, draw me to yourself."
"Jesus, fill me with a deep desire for you."
"Jesus, help me to love you above all things."
"Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in you."
Thirdly, the prayer of quiet may involve sitting with a thought that touched us while we were engaged in spiritual reading.
Finally, spending some time in quiet allows God to speak to our hearts. Someone has suggested that one reason God has given us two ears and one mouth is that we might listen to him twice as much as we speak.
Reflection Question: Is your prayer time usually busy or do you usually take time just to be quietly seated in the presence of God? Can you see how important it is sometimes to "do nothing" in prayer other than just "being there" before God?
Two Problem Areas
Distractions.
I am sure that distractions in prayer is a problem for almost everyone. If we suffer excessively from distractions, we may become discouraged and quit praying. How should we deal with distractions? Two suggestions: First, ignore distractions of a trivial nature e.g., external noises, what we need to do later today. When I am distracted by things I need to do later in the day, I jot them down on a piece of paper so that I will not be worrying about forgetting them. A piece of good news about dealing with distraction is this: Every decision to leave a distraction and turn our focus back to God is a decision to choose and love God more than our distraction. So if we are distracted 20 times during a prayer period and 20 times return to God, then we have made 20 acts of love for God, which is no small achievement. Isn't that good news and a very positive way to look at and deal with distractions. There are other kinds of distractions that God may want us to pay attention to. For example, we may be distracted by some wrongdoing in our lives or by some relationship or by something we have an excessive attachment to. Such distractions do need our attention. We need to bring them to prayer and ask Jesus' help with them.
Spiritual Dryness
Nothing discourages us in prayer more than the experience of spiritual dryness. We feel God is 'out to lunch' when we come to pray. We may even feel abandoned by God. We have no felt sense of God's presence. St. Ignatius calls this experience, desolation. Other writers call it the desert.
Why does God allow us to experience desolation in prayer? This is an important question and cannot be dealt with it extensively here. But, the following may help. Generally, we can say that God allows us to experience dryness and desolation in prayer to purify us. There is always a danger that we love the "warm fuzzies" or the consolations of our God more than the God of our "warm fuzzies" or consolations. It is easy to love someone when everything is going well and when we have feelings of love for the person. But, it is much more challenging to love when the "warm fuzzies" are not present and the other person doesn't seem to be attentive to us or our needs.
How should we respond to the experience of desolation in prayer? By staying faithful to prayer even though we seem to be 'sent away empty' (Luke 2:53). In doing this we are showing God that we are not in the relationship just for what we can get out of it, but because we love God in bad times as well as in good times. If we have a high need for control in life, we may have a more difficult time dealing with spiritual desolation. We certainly can't control God. Instead, our call is to surrender to him all tendencies to manipulate him or to get God to do our will. A strong faith is critical in the desert times of prayer. This faith will remind us:
In the desert, God is not punishing us but rather purifying our relationship with him (Deut. 30:6)In the desert, we need to remember that our prayer is good and pleasing to God if we continue to desire him and long for his presence. In the desert, a consoling thought is this: "Our prayer is good when our heart is fixed on God, even if it is filled with boring aridity or passionate turmoil" (Fr. Jack Dalrymple). When we come to prayer, we place ourselves at God's disposal. "Here I am Lord, I come to do your will" should be our core attitude. What graces we receive in prayer is God's business, not ours. Our challenge is to be as available and present to God as we can. If God chooses to bless us with his seeming absence (and God is always only seemingly absent) that is also good, for in faith we trust that the Potter knows what he is doing with us, his clay (Jer 181-17). In the desert, it may also be helpful to seek the support and prayer of a spiritual director or fellow-wise pilgrim. The writings of the late Dutch priest, Henri Nouwen, have been a source of encouragement to millions of prayer-pilgrims all over the world. In his book, Cry for Mercy, he wrote a prayer that should encourage all of us when we are discouraged in prayer.In the desert, God grows his best flowers (virtues) (Hosea 2:1-11
"While we rest in him, he works in us" (Peter deCelles)
In the desert, God's seeming absence is just a different type of presence, one that we have not yet recognized (Exodus 16:1-15).
An excellent in-depth treatment of dryness in prayer, is When the Well Runs Dry, by Fr. Thomas Green S.J. Ave Maria Press. (1 800-282-1865)
Five Signs of a Healthy Prayer Life
We may spend much time in prayer but "unless the prayers we speak are tightly linked to the lives we lead, they will only be babblings we hide behind, rather than true speech that reveals who we truly are in relation to all that is" (John Shea). The following are some "reality checks' that we can use to see if our prayer is authentic and true:
A Life of Charity and Justice: Our church has always taught that the acid test of true prayer or an authentic spiritual life is a life of charity and justice. Prayer that doesn't lead us to be charitable and just in our dealings with others is false prayer.When it comes to prayer, the bottom line is having a heart that seeks to have communion and friendship with the Trinity and that seeks to be a channel of God's love for all that he has created.A Passion to seek and do God's will. The consuming passion of Jesus' life was to "do the will of him who sent me" (John 4:34).
Trust in God. A sure sign that our prayer life is maturing is that we are replacing fear and anxiety and a need to control with a deep trust in God and his providence.
An authentic prayer life will help us to be more forgiving and accepting of the short comings of others and ourselves. While it is very normal for us to be sometimes as 'mad as hell' with others or with ourselves, a true prayer life will push us to ask: how long do we want to stay mad with this person or with ourselves? Six months? Six years? If God again and again forgives us our sins, must we not follow his good example by striving with his help to forgive others and ourselves. I think that it is safe to say that an infallible sign that we are becoming more Christ-like is our growing ability to forgive others, self, the church and God. On the other hand, it is probably also safe to say that an infallible sign that our relationship with God needs much help is the presence of hard-heartedness in our attitudes towards certain groups or individuals. For practical help with this area, see our Parish web page Index of Fr. Tobin's writings then click on Pastoral Issues for my article on forgiveness.
Reflection Question: How healthy is your prayer life?
Suggested Reading: If interested in reading a book on prayer that is pretty comprehensive, I suggest: Prayer in Practice by Fr. Pat Collins, Orbis books, 1-800-258-5838 Sr. Bridge McKenna, famous for her gift of healing writes of this book: "Fr. Collins has written a book I have been waiting for, for years. It is practical, scriptural, personal. It is utterly interesting and hard to put down."
For Suggestions on How to Spend a Quiet Time with God, click on Prayer/Spirituality.