Week 1: "Deepening Our Prayer" (Deacon Brett)
Hello, everyone. Happy Advent! This weekend we begin our Prayer 201 series with “Deepening our prayer.” A common misunderstanding one often encounters is that genuinely deep and powerful prayer is the purview of monks and mystics, not ordinary people. That the kind of intimate, interpersonal sharing we see in the writings of St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, etc., is reserved for those who have hours a day to devote to prayer.
Nothing is further from the truth. Prayer - even for the average, ordinary person who works in the world, who has family responsibilities, who has little or no theological formation – can be much more than grace before meals, a few quick thank-yous as we’re falling asleep, and an occasional plea for help when we need it. In fact, it’s supposed to be. When we pray genuinely and faithfully, we should expect our prayer to grow into an intimate, interpersonal sharing with God, a heart-to-heart encounter that deepens our love and also transforms our lives. That’s the normal and natural outcome of prayer, and it’s not reserved to mystics.
Key to praying effectively is understanding that Christian prayer is first and foremost a relationship. It’s not so much a “technique” to be mastered in order to “produce” a higher state of consciousness, such as you might find in New Age or Buddhist spirituality. Nor is it a one way, bottom-up affair in which we constantly send prayerful words God’s way in order to get from God what we need; God is not a vending machine! Prayer for the Christian is relational; it’s crawling into the lap of our heavenly Father; it’s the exchange of hearts between two who love each other; it’s a slowly deepening communion of mind and heart. That might sound poetic, but it’s actually very practical.
Think about an important moment shared with someone you love. My guess is that the quality of that time is determined much more by how you are with that person rather than what you do with them. Do we stop and make time for the person, or do we fit them in as we’re busy with other things? Do we pay attention to them or are we distracted? Do we seek to really listen and understand them, or do we impose our own thoughts and understanding? Peter Kreeft teaches that with prayer, three things are essential: we must stop; we must look; and we must listen. Just as with someone we genuinely care about, we must stop our other tasks and actively make time for God. Praying while you’re working is a good thing, but it only works if it’s anchored in regular periods of time set apart for God alone. God can’t just be the background music as we go about other, more important tasks. Even if it’s only for 5 or 10 minutes a day, time set apart for God alone is crucial if we want to grow in prayer.
When we pray, we must “look” at God. In prayer, we focus our inner attention on God; not on our emotions; not on our thinking, planning or daydreaming; not even first and foremost on our life situation. But doesn’t God want us to share our lives and needs, joys and sorrows with Him? Sure. But we enter into conversation with God about those things, not ourselves. Prayer is not primarily introspection or navel-gazing. That’s why we so often structure our prayer around the words of Scripture or the Mysteries of the Rosary or the Blessed Sacrament. Prayer is first and foremost gazing into the eyes of our Beloved – not into a mirror!
Finally, listening is crucial in prayer. The Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts when we pray, and as we grow in prayer, our capacity to hear and respond to His promptings increases. If God prompts us in prayer toward gratitude or contrition or adoration or deep longing or a resolve to change, it’s much more important to follow those promptings, to dwell in them and express them to God than it is to worry about getting through our prayers. Msgr. Romano Guardini used to say, “It’s better to pray one or two decades of the Rosary from the heart than the whole thing hurriedly.” And if (when!) we reach that point in prayer where God makes His presence felt in a compelling and unmistakable way, we may find that the prayer becomes almost all God’s. Our words disappear as we silently gaze on Him, slaking our thirst on the One who thirsts for us.
So much more could be said! If you’d like to learn more, let me suggest three books:
1. Prayer for Beginners by Peter Kreeft;
2. Prayer Primer by Fr Thomas Dubay; and
3. The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.
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Week 2: "Distractions, Boredom and Busyness" (Fr. Dave)
Ahhhh, distractions! If any one of you has not experienced distractions while doing your personal prayers or praying at Mass, something is wrong with you! Here’s some practical advice. First, do not be surprised that you experience distractions. It is not a sign that you are doing something wrong or are a bad person. And, it is not a sin. Our God is infinitely patient with our humanness and our weakness; He does not expect us to be angels. An image given in the Bible to describe us and God is like a little child being held in God’s lap. You and I would never have the expectation that a little child on our lap would sit with absolute focus on us without flitting around with all kinds of energy and change of attention! So when we find that our minds had wandered off while we are praying this is what we do. Gently, gently, bring our attention back to our prayers - without shame or disgust, and also without just letting the distractions carry on. There is a self discipline required in this to keep pulling ourselves back to a relaxed awareness and attentiveness to God. Ultimately, specifically Christian prayer does not attempt to block out human life and the world that comes to us thru all our senses, but instead is committed to bringing everything to God in an ever greater surrender. Something I find helpful in my prayer space at home is to keep a note pad handy. I often find myself thinking of something I need to remember to do, and simply jotting it down frees me to return (gently!) to prayer.
In our highly stimulated world, praying requires a shift in expectations. Prayer is simply not always warm, interesting, insight-filled, and fresh with the sense of God with us. As with all relationships, our relationship with God, especially as it matures, naturally quiets down and is less dependent on feelings. The saints write consistently about a growing sense of dryness and nothingness as they mature in their relationship with God. The key word in times of boredom or dryness is faithfulness: creating a habit and routine, and sticking to it, especially when we don’t want to or don’t think we are getting anything out of it. In the long run this is precisely how our love-life with the Lord deepens. Let me repeat, you are not doing something wrong if your times of prayer are not full of energy, intense, or exciting! It is even more an expression of love when we persevere and remain faithful in these less-than-personally-gratifying times.
Finally, the challenge of praying in the midst of lives that are simply very, very busy. I have a promise for you on this, similar to one I have mentioned about tithing: we cannot out-give God! Any amount of time we carve out for prayer will be more than returned to us in a greater sense of focus, creativity and inner peace. Making prayer a priority in our lives assists in putting everything else in proper perspective. Find a time that works consistently for you, commit to it, and let it become part of the flow of your life. Exceptions will of course occur, and it is in these times of stress, emergencies, and pressure, that we really experience the payoff for the regular habit of connecting with God in our daily praying.
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Week 3: "The Distinction Between Liturgical and Personal Prayer" (Fr. Dave)
We began our Prayer 201 Series two weeks ago talking about going deeper in our prayer, beyond the simple recitation of various prayers. Christian prayer is at its core a humble, vital, intimate encounter with God; it is a relationship to nurture, not a technique to master. This week I want to address a clarification that helps avoid a lot of confusion and frustration: the distinction between our private-personal prayer, and our more public or liturgical prayer.
Personal prayer or devotional prayer is the one we tend to “get” more easily. It is about our offering ourselves to God, in thanksgiving, surrender, or intercession. It can include the recitation of various prayers, novenas, rosary, chaplet, lectio divina, centering prayer and the many forms of meditation and contemplation. This kind of prayer facilitates each of us as individuals in connecting with God—and nurturing that relationship.
Liturgical prayer is different. It is the prayer of Christ praying through the Church for the world. The Church does not exist for its own sake, but as an instrument of salvation for the world. So, when we pray the Mass we are entering into the prayer and sacrifice of Jesus with the intention of bringing that salvation to the entire world. Other forms of liturgical prayer include the rituals surrounding the celebration of any of the sacraments and the Liturgy of the Hours. This kind of prayer is ultimately not so much about our personal intimacy with Jesus, as about our praying as the Body of Christ for the salvation of all.
A clarification will help at this point. Personal prayer can be done joined together with many people, such as praying the rosary or doing a devotion with a large or small group. It is still personal prayer. And, liturgical prayer could be the celebration of Mass with only a handful of people present—and it is still liturgical prayer. And, when we confuse the distinction between these two kinds of praying we risk doing each poorly. For example, the person who feels frustrated because the liturgical ritual and interaction of a congregation at Mass are felt as a hindrance and distraction to the private devotional prayers he or she would like to be saying, is confusing the two forms of prayer and consequently doing both badly. A mature Catholic spirituality will embrace both ways of praying.
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Week 4
In our first session of Prayer 201, we suggested a way of nurturing (deepening) our relationship with the Lord is to think of the three words stop, look, and listen. This week our topic is specifically listening to God to know and follow his will in our lives. As we have already made clear in this series, there is no formula that is going to provide for us a print-out of exactly what God wants us to do in any given situation. Remember, prayer is a relationship--not a technique to be mastered. And, the more we deepen this relationship with God, the more we will genuinely desire to know and want to do his will.
We misunderstand God and his will if we think of it as a detailed plan for every action and decision of our lives. It then would become an escape for us taking responsibility for our lives and would reduce us to infantile robots, instead of mature and confident disciples. Here are some guidelines that Fr. John Powell SJ uses to describe the general and the specific will of God:
General Will of God for all people at all times:
Glorify God by using gifts in the fullest and most loving way possible.
In difficult choices, choose what is the most loving thing to do.
Consider the needs of God’s Kingdom in decision making.
Desire to make one’s entire life an act of love, resisting all selfishness.
Specific Will of God for special circumstances:
God’s “master plan” uses a whole network of crisscrossing causes to achieve his intentions.
Some specific opportunities are entrusted uniquely to each of us.
This creates an urgency in our taking time to “listen” to these promptings.
Times when we are invited to do something bold or frightening will be confirmed by the presence of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. (joy, peace, love, patience, kindness, humility, self control.
The most necessary step in finding the will of God? To desire to know and do the will of God with all your heart at all times!