So, what is prayer? Well, in the words of St. Therese of Lisieux, prayer is “a surge of the heart…a simple look turned toward heaven…a cry of recognition and of love.” Prayer is the way we speak to God. It’s the conversations in our relationship with him. It includes praise, adoration, thanksgiving, contrition, petition, intercession. But also listening, yielding. And, like other intimate relationships, it also includes turning our hearts over to the beloved.
For Christians, who want a personal relationship with God, prayer is necessary. It is impossible to be in a personal relationship with someone if we never communicate with them. Prayer is life for the soul, and lack of prayer is deadly for the soul. If we don’t pay proper attention to prayer, our faith will become immature and weak. If we fail to pray over a period of time it can destroy us. We will become prone to sins and may lose the taste for spiritual things. Our relationship with God will crumble, making us more susceptible to fall into mortal sin and lose the state of grace. Then we are in danger of losing the gift of eternal life. So yes, prayer is necessary, because our relationship with God is necessary.
As Christians, we pray! Let’s talk about some great examples of Christian prayer that come from the heart of the church. First we have holy Mass, the highest prayer there is. This is something we all do, and it’s part of the precepts of the Church to go to Mass every week and on Holy Days of Obligation. We also have devotions such as the rosary or novenas, and memorized prayers, which come to us from the Scripture or the saints. I love memorized prayers; they help bring to mind things I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. “Bless the Lord, my soul; all my being, bless His holy Name. Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget His benefits. He pardons our iniquity, He heals all our ills, He rescues us from the pit, He fills our life with good things, surrounds us with love and compassion, gives us the strength of the eagle.” Bless the Lord, my soul; all my being, bless His holy name. I love that memorized prayer; it’s one of the Psalms, and it comes to mind to me throughout my day. It’s just a way to spontaneously pray to God using Scripture. There’s other spontaneous prayers, too, just using your own words, like, “Thank you God, for this beautiful day. Thank You for putting this person in my day. How did You know I needed to talk with her? But, of course, You always know. Thank You again.”
We can also meditate and contemplate on different things. And this is a good way to listen to God. We can contemplate Scripture, spiritual readings, or other such things. Now, since prayer is lifting our heart and simply talking to Him, we are not constrained by these methods. We can each adapt a rhythm of prayer that fits for us. The important part is we keep on praying, and pray in a way that builds and deepens our relationship with God. And, because it’s a relationship, it can’t be a monologue. We’ve all had friends who chatter on and on, and those one-way relationships quickly grow stagnant. We don’t want that with our relationship with God. We need to listen to God when we pray.
Let’s make the comparison of prayer and other relationships that we have. At work, you may have to give a status update to your boss each day, and that’s a communication, but it’s a task. With a friend, a good friend, a loved one? Well, that’s different. Often we can’t wait to tell them about our day and to hear about theirs. We often call our dear ones on our way home from work. These days, we can even shoot them a quick text message, picture, gif, or whatever, back and forth, throughout the day, to share what has crossed your path as we go along. We find ways to invite those we love into our day, to share our joys and sorrows, to ask for help or support, to encourage them or ask about their day, their big meeting. This is the natural way of building a relationship. And it applies also to our prayer life.
Sometime prayer can drop into becoming a task to be done only when the time is right, or it can loses its priority altogether. These are temptations we must overcome. There is always a reason not to pray. We must remember that prayer is more than just a feeling to do when we feel like it. It’s a discipline. It’s a choice we make to tune in and to invite God into our day and into our life, to include God in the rhythm of our day. Don’t make the mistake of waiting for the “feeling” to come over you, or wait for the perfect circumstance to pray. “Only if I’m in a chapel that’s quiet and I have a half-hour.” Choose to pray, even when you don’t feel like it; even when you are tired, busy, distracted, not feeling holy enough (whatever that means). If prayer is inviting God into our day, we can and should pray any time or any place.
Even on busy days, we can turn to God and shoot up quick “text message” type prayers – like we do with our friends. It’s one way to keep God in our day. A word of caution though: we must be careful not to limit our prayers to the short messages. In order to build the relationship, we do need to carve out time where we can sit with the Lord, to love Him and allow Him to love us. We’ll talk more about that when we talk about the spiritual disciplines.
Now, if we recognize prayer as inviting God into our daily lives, prayer becomes less of a task and more of an attitude, a disposition of the heart. “I want God to be part of this. I need God to be in my day.” This is how we pray constantly, which is, by the way, from scripture. Now, don’t worry if constant prayer sounds impossible right now. It is something to work towards. We can start by setting aside regular times of prayer, especially in the morning and at night, and by pausing to turn our minds and hearts to God at various times throughout the day. In doing this, we can gradually develop the habit of talking with God throughout our day. Eventually, a wordless communion with God can “spill over” into every moment of our day and in all of our daily activities, even when we can’t raise our minds to God intentionally.
This is a path of maturing love. It blossoms peacefully, often over a long period of time, as our relationship with God deepens. It’s the gradual response of love to love. It is God “wooing” us as a lover woos his beloved. Jesus calls us forward: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden… abide in my love.” (Mt 11:28 and Jn 15:9).
This deepening and maturing in our relationship with God through constant prayer is so important to our work of evangelization. It allows us to be the conduit between God and the people we encounter. Recognize that this is an everlasting journey toward the infinite love of God, and as such, no one will ever complete it in this life. We simply strive as we continue ever deeper in our relationship with God. One of the best way to do this is through prayer.