What is Prayer?

[[Dear Sister, My question is , what is prayer? I know god knows all things and could cure my Sister-in-law should he so choose. I also know from my grade school days there are prayers of petition, of thanksgiving and others that I cannot remember right now. How does one, you, spend time in prayer? What do you think about while spending this time? Perhaps focusing on the life of a saint, say Saint Bonifacius, Saint Anne; a parable from the New Testament? A psalm? A story, and its message, from the Old Testament. A concept like Sanctifying Grace, the Communion of saints, etc.]]

 Hi there,

     I guess the most basic answer I would give is that besides being God's own work within us, prayer is our Spirit-empowered response to the active and effective presence of God in our lives and in our larger world. It presupposes and always presumes he is present and active within and around us and involves opening ourselves to that in a variety of ways. Thus, different forms of prayer look differently than others. For instance, in quiet prayer, I tend not to think about anything in particular; I simply sit quietly and open myself to God so that he might dwell within me and touch me in whatever ways he wills. When I pray with Scripture I read it slowly and allow it to speak to me in whatever way it can. I may also imagine myself in the scene, imagine Jesus has just told (or rather, is telling) me the parable at hand, and so forth. Another piece of all this is journaling: I journal about Scripture, and also about the events in my own life in ways which allow God's voice to be heard there. Journaling tends to accompany all of the prayer in my life.

With Divine Office I sing the psalms etc. and pour myself into them as best I can. With the Lord's Prayer, I might take a single petition each day and spend time with it or I might pray the entire prayer with space between each petition so that I am free to feel, think, imagine, etc whatever might be associated with that line. When traveling on a train, for instance, I look briefly at each person while praying the Jesus prayer (I finger some beads I wear on my wrist at such times). When I am ill, I might take a Taize hymn or other piece of music and listen to it while opening myself to God's presence as well as I can.

My prayer for others tends to be a prayer that God will be with them and support them in whatever way they most need. It seems to me to be as important that I hold them in my heart as it is to pray for anything specific. I know that the God who grounds my being and resides within my heart links me to the other person in a similar way so in some ways my prayer is an offer to support that person and to not leave them alone --- even though I may have no awareness of this nor may they. My own spontaneous prayers tend to be cries for assistance ("O God come to me assistance, O Lord make haste to help me!"),  cries of deep joy and gratitude, exclamations of amazement, praise, etc. 

Guess that's about it for a start. Please be assured of my prayers for your Sister-in-Law. Whatever happens she is not alone.

Always Beginners

[[Dear Sister Laurel, you wrote that hermits feel like novices even after living the life for decades. Why is that? I think Saint Teresa of Avila said like she always felt like a beginner in prayer. Are you speaking of the same experience?]]

Re your first query, what a terrific question --- and a difficult one too! I have never really thought about why one always feels like a beginner at living as a hermit even when one has lived this way for years (which, as I think about it, is definitely not the same as being a novice or neophyte),  but I would say that a large part of it has to do with the reason we are always beginners in prayer, yes. In other words, your question is a profoundly theological one and the answer itself has to do with the nature of God and the nature of prayer.

It is important to remember that prayer is more the action of God than that of human beings. Even when we define it as raising our minds and hearts to God we are speaking of something both initiated and empowered by God. Prayer is God at work in us, and when we speak of prayer periods or engaging in prayer we are speaking of those privileged or dedicated times we allow God to work more freely in us than we may at other times. Therefore, it is not, by definition, something we can become practiced at even though the smallest part of it involves our own actions and dispositions. While we can learn to relax physically, become comfortable in silence, deal with thoughts and distractions, open ourselves more or less to God's presence, a large part of prayer (including our desire to pray) is what God does within us --- and there is always a newness and a kind of incommensurability about this --- even when God's movement within us is subtle at best.

I think the second reason is related. When God is active within us, and especially when we open ourselves to that activity, we change. Our hearts become deeper and more expansive in their capacity to love, our eyes and ears are opened to the really real (Ephphatha!), our minds are also converted, and everything looks and feels differently because we ourselves are different. Thus, through the power of God we are attuned more and more to the eternal which interpenetrates our world and this means that things are never old, never static, and perhaps no longer really completely familiar. I think that ordinarily a piece of judging whether we are a beginner or not is gained by comparing how familiar doing something is. When these things are familiar there is an ease about them, and we are able to gauge the expected results without much conscious attention to things. With prayer, however, we are constantly being brought into a "far country" and in contact with a dynamic, living God we cannot imagine much less set forth expectations about. There is a sense of adventure here, even when it is very very muted; I am not sure that adventure in these terms is ever something we are "old hands" at.

At the same time there is also monotony and sometimes a tedium about eremitical life; like everyone we may crave short term novelty and distraction, but be uncomfortable with the patience and persistence required for genuine newness. Our world often mistakes novelty for authentic newness and we are profoundly accustomed to and conditioned by this. Yet, the yearning for real newness is a part of our very being. (In the NT there are two different words for new which accent this distinction. The first is kaines or kainetes which indicates a newness of character which is superior and respects the old; the second is neos which means new in time but can also mean a denigration of the traditional or the old.) The situation of monotony and tedium is exacerbated because prayer can seem like nothing at all happens despite our trust (knowledge) that God is present within us working, touching, loving, recreating, and healing.

In the short term especially we may not be able to see or sense the changes that are occurring within us and since the hermitage itself changes very little, in worldly terms we think we are not progressing. This too can make us feel like beginners because we don't feel "we are getting anywhere". It might seem that this conflicts with what I said above about the adventure of prayer, but it is more the case that both things are occurring at the same time and we see one or the other according to our perspective. I think though, that this set of reasons (focusing on our own progress in worldly terms) is far less significant or influential for contemplatives --- and that is especially true if we are speaking of St Teresa of Avila or someone similar.

In light of what I said about the distinction between novelty and authentic newness above, it occurs to me that some folks imagine heaven (the realm where God is truly Lord) as really tedious or boring (thus they fill it or at least imagine it filled with activities!); but the simple fact is that the God who is eternal and living is, for these very reasons, always new. Our own yearning for newness is a yearning for God and life with God, not a desire for novelty or distraction. (One of the reasons Christians embrace some form of poverty, by the way, is precisely to be sure their lives are attuned to the new (kaines, kainetes) rather than to the novel (neos). For those truly attuned to the new there is therefore less need to become shopaholics, less need for every new gadget or electronic gizmo. But the novel is seductive and religious poverty as value or vow helps limit the degree to which it seduces us!!) It seems to me that to the degree we are truly attuned to God's presence and live in grateful communion with him, to the extent we really are a new creation, all is new to us as well. We experience all of this with gratitude and the sense that we are always beginners.

I will definitely think about this more --- especially the link between gratitude and always being beginners just opened in the last sentences. The entire reality is fascinating, both as a topic and especially as an experience to which persons of prayer witness; so again, many thanks for the questions. I am sorry I don't have a better answer, but for the time being I hope this is helpful.

Prayer. Is it really "just talking to God"?

[[Hi Sister. A definition I was given of prayer was that it is " just talking to God." The idea here was that one ought not to get overwrought about language or grammar, etc but simply talk to God. However, this seems to rule a lot out of prayer, including a lot you have said about it. Would you disagree or agree with this definition and why?]]

Generally, as I think you are already aware, I disagree with the definition and I believe that while it can be of limited help to some people at some points in learning to pray, especially to young persons used to rote prayers or those who are overly concerned with "getting (or doing) it exactly right" for instance, it is a definition I would generally avoid. There are several reasons. First, our own talking to God is ALWAYS a response to his active, loving, merciful, and communicating presence, and it is this active presence brought to consciousness that is prayer. Prayer itself is the work of the Holy Spirit who empowers us to listen and respond. In other words prayer is ALWAYS first and foremost something God achieves in us, something God does, not something we do ourselves except secondarily and derivatively. The focus on OUR talking misses this accent on God's action and initiative, sometimes completely. Secondly, the focus on talking often rules out subsequent listening to God as well. Similarly, it rules out other non-verbal forms of prayer as well: running or walking quietly, sitting silently, meditating on Scripture, playing violin (etc), painting, and/or any other activity in which one both listens (or watches) attentively and pours oneself into the activity in a responsive way. Prayer involves listening to and with one's heart. This presupposes the activity of God there and it perceives prayer not only as responsive, but as a centered act of the whole person. Finally, when one defines prayer as "just talking to God" one sets oneself and others up for expecting (and not getting) a correlative response on God's part; one sets oneself and others up for believing either they have not been heard or what they said not been regarded, etc. The dynamic here is "I did my part; why doesn't God do his?" --- because after all, God really does NOT speak to us or answer prayer in a comparable way.

This definition of prayer is reductionistic and personally I can't see simplifying (or reducing) the definition of prayer to "just talking to God" when the difficulty with prayer is not that it involves tricky or hard-to-learn techniques. What is difficult about prayer is learning to trust ever more deeply, and further, learning to perceive the activity of God that goes on all the time within and around us so that we can learn to surrender increasingly to it. Defining prayer in terms of "just talking to God" can encourage self-centeredness and make maturation in prayer quite difficult. It may involve some degree of surrendering to God and communicating from one's heart (ideally it implies these things), but often it means simply pouring things out to God in an assertive way and then leaving once one has had one's say, without any genuine listening. When this is true, "just talking to God," can be a distraction from more authentic or mature prayer. In fact it can prevent us from even suspecting that prayer involves "listening" (that is attending and surrendering) to a God who himself is a constituent part of the activity of our hearts or, that is, to the very core of our Selves.

Another objection I have is that it is a definition that tends to make of God just another buddy we disclose our daily agenda or problems to. While I agree our relationship with God should allow for complete openness in such matters and that friendship with God is something to honor, God is not just another friend we chat or have coffee with (though we may ALSO do these things with him in a conscious way). As I noted briefly above, one definition of prayer I personally use with people (including grade school kids in years 6-8) is, "listening to and with one's heart." Here the accent is on paying attention to what a sovereign God does within us, and also making all we do into prayer. Prayer is clearly something responsive which God empowers, and while it will surely involve pouring out our hearts to God, it is always more a matter of letting him pour himself into our hearts -- and into our world through us. In every way, the intimacy of friendship notwithstanding, prayer is not simply talking to a peer. On the whole then, my objections to the definition you heard and provided is that it assists with a narrow range of problems in prayer but fails to teach the larger truth that prayer is always God's own work in us or therefore, that it demands an attentiveness that goes far beyond "just talking to God." For that reason I believe it creates more problems than it solves.

Emmanuel, Naming the Communion Which is the Human Heart

How many of us are completely convinced of our need for God? For how many of us is he an occasional visitor we may or may not make time for, but not really someone essential to our own humanity? We are human, we think, without him --- not AS human or enriched as we might be otherwise, but human all the same. We are "just" or "merely" human without him, we think --- poor perhaps, and beset by this sin or that maybe, but still human all the same.

But no! The truth at the heart of our faith is otherwise; the truth which undergirds our prayer, worship, hope, and destiny is otherwise. The option before us is not to be religious people or non-religious people. It is not a choice between a merely richer or more impoverished existence, both equally human. The option before us is really to be human or not, to embrace the truth at the heart of ourselves and to be the responsive word event we are called to be, or to reject this truth, and our deepest selves as well. Mary's response to this call was "FIAT!" and it is the response, the ongoing hearkening which God seeks from us as well.

The image of God coming to us from outside us is a true one. Christmas is indeed a celebration of this kind of coming. But Christmas is also the fulfillment of a young woman's hearkening to the Word spoken deep within her, uniquely spoken within her, yes, but spoken within her just as it is spoken within each of us as well. The nativity of the One who would definitively incarnate God's logos is what we will celebrate at Christmas, but this event is rooted in the altogether human "yes" to God's proposal to wed his destiny to ours; it is a yes which is expected from each of us, and which was uniquely accomplished in Mary's own heart. It is the yes we are meant to be, and which our hearts are meant to sing at each moment and mood of our lives, the yes which will allow God's merciful love to transform the barrenness and poverty of our existence into fruifulness and new life.

The image of the human heart as a communal reality has been very rich for me this Advent, and I cannot let it go at this point (this blog has taken on the shape of a theme and variations, I know). The sense that I am not human alone is a freshly startling insight for me. It is not simply that I need others, nor even that my being embraces others as threads in the weaving which is my life. These things are true enough, and I can recall the times I came to understand these things, and the theological quandries they resolved. The truth goes deeper, is more profound, however: I am myself ONLY INSOFAR as I am a communion with God (and with others in and through him).

Communion with God is not simply something I am made for in the future --- as though I have the capacity for this relationship, but could, if I chose, forego it and still be myself. Communion with God is the NATURE OF my ESSENTIAL being. I AM --- insofar as I am truly human --- communion with God. My truest I is a "we".(Remember e e cumming's poem, we're wonderful 1X1? cf post for October 26, 2007 to reread this poem) To the extent God and I are a we, I am truly myself. This is true for each of us, no matter our vocation or state of life. For us, the choice is between a false autonomy which is really inhuman, and (as Paul Tillich would put the matter) a theonomy which constitutes us as truly human. Unless this exists, and to the extent there is no communion with God, there is no "I" --- not in the truest sense of that pronoun.

The circumcision of our hearts, the making ready "the way of the Lord" is not only the making ready for Christmas. It is the preparation for our own continued nativities as well. With Mary, we learn to say "Fiat" to the God who would be God-with-us as part of our very being. Prayer is indeed not something only specialists or the really religious do; it is the essence of being human, the activity which allows the God who would REALLY join his destiny with our own to be the One he WOULD be, and to be the persons he makes US to be as well. Therefore, we pray for two reasons: 1) because we are MADE for it and would not be authentically human selves without it, and 2) because GOD needs us to do so if he is ALSO to be the One he wills to be. Once again, our's is a God who has chosen and determined not to remain alone; he has chosen and determined that his lfe and our own are to be intimately linked, inextricably wed, in a Communion of shared destiny.

God-with-us certainly refers to the infant in Mary's womb as we approach the baby's nativity, but it also very much refers to the Communion God desires be born in our own hearts. Emmanuel, God-with-us, is the name given the truly human heart. It is the name given to anyone who fulfills their truest destiny, by allowing God to be God for, with, and within us.