1. What is Prayer?
Starting this series on prayer has not been easy. In these
short meditations I am attempting to take six millennia of
Jewish prayer and two millennia of Christian practice and
find what appeals to our modern minds. So let me begin by
asking the question what is prayer?
Most of you would know that definition of prayer as the
“lifting up of the heart and mind to God.” For
hundreds of years, Catholic school children memorized this
rich definition. And I think it is a wonderful one but one
which needs to be “un-packed”
Let’s begin with this idea of “lifting
up” The first thing which happens in prayer is that
we actually do it. Prayer is not something we just catch or
feel. It takes a movement of the soul which decides to
pray. It requires effort on our part. It requires being
alert and attentive to the fact that we are praying. Often
we speak of concentrating when we are praying. Often I have
begun a prayer and have been distracted that I am not even
sure that I have said it. My will was not there to pray. I
find this happens when I am praying the Angelus. I begin it
and then before I know it, I am making or taking a phone
call, writing something down or some other activity. But
the classic picture of the Angelus is a small group of
farmers who have stopped their work, with hands folded,
saying the prayer. Note the difference. Prayer is an
activity which requires us to turn from what we are doing
to doing the prayer.
But what are we doing when we pray? Let’s say that we
have made the decision to lift up our souls to God. We have
stopped - as best we can - the external distraction of the
phone, the door bell, the TV. Where do we go from here?
The old Catechism says the “lifting up of the heart
and mind.” We use these two things every day at
almost every moment. Let’s say that we are having a
discussion on the qualities of meat load. We each have
feelings about meat loaf. Some love it, some hate it. Some
couldn’t care. But to have an opinion we have to
think about what meat loaf is, when we had it last, how it
should look. We feel love, hate, desire, repulsion about
last week’s meat loaf. But in all these cases, we
have to both think and feel about it. In prayer, we are
presented by the grace of God something to pray about. We
think and feel certain ways about our joys, our sorrows,
our needs, our wants. We pray about these things which are
our own and those of others. We are having a conversation
of thoughts and feelings not only with ourselves but also
with God.
The final part of this classic definition is that the
reason and the recipient of our prayers is God. Confident
of His love and mercy, we make the decision to stop and
turn to Him with our thoughts and feelings.
Prayer is a gift from God as a gentle wind or whisper
calling us to this time of prayer. Whether in the private
of your home or in the midst of millions attending a Papal
Mass, it is God calling us to this conversation. In the
coming weeks of Lent, we will look at the language of this
conversation. But perhaps the most beautiful aspect of
prayer, and one we would do well never to forget, is that
this conversation does not begin with us. It is God who is
looking to reach us even though we may feel that we are the
ones starting things. God’s love reaches out to us
before we know it and urges us gently. That is why we are
here and why we keep coming back.
This is a long journey. To tell the truth, I don’t
think I am too far along it. But we all need to sometimes
just check the map to make sure we are where we think we
should be heading. Lent is that time. May the God who
inspires, informs and perfects our prayer lead us closer to
the reason for our prayer which is His deep love and
mercy.2. Adoration - A Life Before God
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living
creatures and the elders the voice of many angels,
numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was
slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and
honor and glory and blessing!"
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under
the earth and in the sea, and all therein, saying, "To him
who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and
honor and glory and might for ever and ever!" And the four
living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and
worshiped.
Every Thursday we sing in Latin in this Church: “Down
in adoration falling.” We use the word
“adore” so often at Mass and in private prayer
that we ought to examine what it means to be people of
prayer who adore our God.
As we heard in the reading, all of creation, the Church in
this world and the world to come, fall down in adoration of
God. This “falling down” is at the heart of
adoration. It means to fall, to kneel before something
greater than the individual. We bow in respect to a king
but when we bow before God it called adoration. For those
of you with knees that still work, you do this when you
kneel in prayer or genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament.
But in the New Testament, we understand this bowing down to
be far more than physical. We understand that this act must
occur not only with the body but more so within the heart.
So how do we adore in prayer and why should we? To submit
the heart in wonder and awe of God is first of all a
humiliating experience. We are brought to a realization of
how truly great our God is and how - at times - we can be
so far from that greatness. The root of the word humility
is the same as the dirt of the ground we walk upon, As we
bow to the ground within our soul, we bow to the reality
that God is God and we are not. Yet at the same time, we
experience a peace which comes from knowing that we do not
have to live in the illusion that we are god-like. In
adoring the Creator, we are free to remain His wonderful
handiwork. Bowing in adoration to God reminds us that we
are chosen by His grace to do so. Adoration puts things
into their proper place.
So how does this first step in prayer happen? We are moved
to pray and so first come in body, mind and heart before
God. We bow both physically and spiritually before God. But
we need to express our adoration. It is not a simple
gesture alone but one that requires an understanding of who
God is and what marvelous things He has done in the world
and in our life. The language of adoration is the language
of praise. We express our adoration in hymns, poems and
prayers. We sing of God’s power and majesty. We
recite using the intangible language of poetry the beauty
of God’s holiness. We recite or compose the prayer
words which glorify the might of God’s love. But
perhaps the best words to use, to pray, to sing, even to
shout are the Psalms.
The Psalms are the very words which Jesus Himself used to
praise the Father and they are the bulk of the
Church’s liturgical prayer. The old Latin Mass on
which our present Mass is based, was composed most of
Psalms to praise God. Our antiphons and responsorial Psalms
express the praise of God in so many ways. Most immediate
to us here tonight, the Office of Compline which we pray is
composed of Psalms.
Do not discount adoration as the first movement of your
prayer. Use the many words of adoration found in prayers
and most particularly in the Word of God. Our God is worthy
of praise. Our Lord is deserving of hearts bowed before our
God of mercy. And we, His wonderful and miraculous work of
creation, are called to acknowledge our honest place before
His glory.
So in the words of Psalm 95, “come. Let us bow down
and worship, bending the knee before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God and we are His people, the flock He
shepherds.”
3. Contrition
"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee
and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and
prayed thus with himself, `God, I thank thee that I am not
like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even
like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes
of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far
off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat
his breast, saying, `God, be merciful to me a sinner!' I
tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather
than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be
humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."
If there is one thing about Lent we all can identity with
is that it is a season of contrition.. But in prayer, what
role does contrition play?
As we here in the parable of the publican and the pharisee,
we see that contrition is a matter of the same dynamic we
see throughout prayer. We see that the humility of adoring
a God of might and mercy is the same humility which brings
us to the contrition necessary for Christian prayer.
Contrition literally means to be broken. It means first of
all to acknowledge that we are broken and then to bring
that heart before God. While we are not speaking here of
the sacrament of Confession, there is a need to come before
God with the less-than-perfect hearts broken by sin in
order for them to be healed.
If prayer is the entering of the worshiper into the holy of
holies within, then it is logical that what comes before
God should be pure. To bow before God and to acknowledge
our broken spirits is the only way to be healed and
cleansed. Remember that the paralytic lowered through the
roof to Jesus’ feet was forgiven his sins and then
healed of His illness.
But none of this is done outside of the context of the
mercy of God. To simply confess out of fear or compulsion
misses the point of the reality of mercy. The prayerful
acknowledgment of our weakness is made so that we may be
healed. Confession without mercy is nothing more than
self-loathing. We come before the holy of holies in order
to leave that place of prayer with grace of God, much as
the publican does in the reading. The pharisee saw no need
to confess and, in an updated text, would be one who says,
“I don’t have anything to confess. I never
killed any one!”
But the sanctuary of the soul is a place where God dwells
in glory. That glory is within you. Contrition in prayer
“cleans that sanctuary.” It puts things in
proper place and order. But above all, it helps us to see
how truly wonderful God’s mercy is.
.4. Thanksgiving
And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who
stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said,
"Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." When he saw them he said
to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as
they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw
that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud
voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him
thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then said Jesus, "Were not
ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to
return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And
he said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made
you well."
We now consider one of the most natural of the movements of
prayer - thanksgiving. There is something throughout the
human experience which calls us to give thanks to those who
have done something good for us be it a God or a neighbor
or, more the recently, the “universe” as a
whole.
So we have this word “thanksgiving.” English is
one of the few languages which makes this contraction of
two words into one. Most of the other Romance languages
call it “the action of thanks.” In America, we
often associate this word with a once-a-year holiday when
we gouge ourselves on food. We also view thanks as a matter
of good manners be it a thank-you note or even just saying
“thank you.” And while these more secular
expressions of common, every day thanks are important and
sadly lacking today, for the Christian, thanksgiving is
essential to our spirituality. It may easily be said that
thanksgiving is a defining characteristic of Christianity.
When we perceive the role of Grace in our lives, the role
of the un-merited favor of God’s presence, we can
only be respond with thanks for so great a gift. In fact,
because of the grace of God religion has become a matter of
grace, not a theological mind game. As Fr. John Meier has
written, it even re-defines our morality. He wrote that
“if religion has become a matter of grace then
morality has become a matter of gratitude.”
So what is the prayerful thanksgiving of the Christian.
Like its word implies there are two aspects: the thanks and
the giving of it.
First of all if we are to be thankful, we must have
something to be thankful for. There needs to be a
recognition of something given to us, something undeserved
or unexpected, which is something good. We have be careful
here in our counting of blessings. Often there are things
which are given or which happen to us that we do not
initially consider “goods” in our lives but
which God gives us for our self-bettering. For instance, we
may not consider that traffic jam a “good” but
if it cause us missing the flight which crashed we will, in
retrospect, consider it a good and therefore, will give
thanks for it. The trick here is to be thankful for the
work of God in our lives before we have the luxury of
hindsight.
Gratitude, while something we see in our own lives, is not
meant to be focused on ourselves. The moment we say that
God should be thanked only because of the things He has
given us reminds me a child who once said she knew that God
loved her because she made her so beautiful - and she meant
as in a beauty queen. Which she was not (but I would give
thanks to God for her positive self-image). Our thanks as
Christians should be focused on what God gives us. Period.
Yes, the vast majority of time it will be the good things -
usually material - which God has given us and for which we
need to be thankful. But we have to always remember that
this God who loves us will gift us beyond our need or our
want. Even if we miss it. Even if we try and reject it.
So what do we do with this graced-attitude of thanksgiving?
We do the same in the spiritual life which we do in
ordinary life. We say. We show it. In our prayer, before
the Throne of Grace, we list, we catagorize, we generalize,
we give specifics, but above all we say it to God. We thank
Him for what He has answered in prayer and what, as Garth
Brooks sings, He has not. We thank Him above all for His
grace which has saved us, mostly from ourselves.
To not give thanks is to express that we are entitled to
all the good that happens to us. This is the attitude of
pride that Jesus objects to in the Gospel with the other
nine now-healed lepers. As with all prayer, it takes a bit
of humility to fall at the feet of the Savior. But
gratitude to God is key to the greatest gift this one
Samaritan leper was given that day: It is the gift of faith
in a God who is simply Good.5. Supplication
Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks
receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it
will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for
bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish,
will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who
ask him!(Mat 7)
From the beginning of the Bible as well as our own
spiritual lives, people have come before God with their
needs and the needs of their families and friends. Tonight
we are considering this fourth movement of prayer called
supplication or asking God for something.
This is what most people consider prayer. It what is
portrayed in movies and on TV. Even among the non-Churched
and pagans, there is an under-lying belief that prayer is
asking God for the things we need or that we think we need
for ourselves and for others. Among the saints, both those
on earth and those in Heaven, we believe that we and they
have the power to ask God for things which will be granted
us.
So how do we see supplication in the context of our life of
prayer as we try to grow in our spiritual lives this Lent?
To begin, I would like to say that each of us makes these
prayers of supplication. We all ask God at some point in
our lives for one thing or another. If not quietly and
individually, we pray in this manner at Mass when we make
the prayer of the faithful or say Amen to one of the other
prayers of the Mass. Even in the Lord’s Prayer itself
we make several supplications. So clearly supplication is
an integral part of the Christian experience.
The first movement of supplication prayer is to understand
what it is. It is a matter of turning to One who is able to
give us the things we think we want. And this is a matter
of faith. It is measure of the confidence we have in God
and in His love for us. Above all is a matter of trust in a
God of providence.
From this point of faith, we make the move - in love -to
ask God for these things. In rather direct words, perhaps
the most honest and direct of all forms of prayer, we ask
God - nicely and otherwise - for specific things. But is
the challenge to imitate the very prayer of Jesus which is
“Thy will be done.” This frames all of our
requests in the far bigger picture of the will of God, His
plan for each of our lives. It states that God and His plan
for us is supreme, even more than out our own needs and
desires.
But it is also easy to view this as an escape clause - as
way of saying that if we don’t get we want it was not
the will of God. We can blame what we see as God not
answering our prayer as a matter of fate or destiny. Or we
can view this “failure” as a superstitious
result of not saying the proper prayer at the proper time.
But in the context of faith, we understand that when we
bring our needs before God we bring them before our loving
Father. We sit with One who loves us and Who is willing to
listen to us. We know by faith that He is good and wants
the best for us. The mistake many make in supplication is
that they confuse God with a magician or Santa Claus. But
from the lapsed sinner to the sincerest saint, God does not
reject these prayers. He uses them to answer a far deeper
need than we could ever express - the need for the human
heart to know the God who created it.
In asking God for our needs, we come to know not only who
we are but also have that chance to see what our desires
really are. And more than that, we come to know more
intimately that paternal love of the Father.
So keep praying in trust. And come to know your desires and
God’s desire for you. Know that what He gives us is
good even if we can’t at the time see it. But
remember that goodness and He will supply all we need which
is most all His grace.8. Bringing It All Together
In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope.
For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we
do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the
Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to
pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us
with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the
hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because
the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will
of God. We know that in everything God works for good with
those who love him, who are called according to his
purpose.
Over these past weeks of Lent we have considered what
prayer is and the four elements of our prayer - Adoration,
Contrition, Thanksgiving and Supplication. We have
understood that there is a certain humility which is
necessary for prayer. It is an action which takes the mind
and the heart together along with the grace-inspired effort
we choose to put into our prayer.
But when it comes to prayer, when do we pray with all these
elements.?
The first place we pray is by ourselves. We call this
private prayer. It is the time when we individually turning
to God whose mercy and blessing ask as we adore and thank
Him. We pray at home, while traveling, in Church or any
where else we feel moved to pray. This practice of prayer
is as varied and personal as each one of us. Each of us can
tell of different times and places when we prefer to pray
and when ad where we feel most comfortable. For some this
will be in the quiet of their living room at dawn; for
others it will be on a commuter train. For some it will be
here in Church; for others it will be while walking in a
garden. Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is especially
graced since we are in such profound proximity to Jesus
Himself. But however we locate our prayer, one thing is
needed. We need to practice a discipline of prayer.
For me, this discipline of prayer is the most difficult. It
means making sure that prayer is as scheduled a part of our
lives as eating meals or doctor's appointments. If we
prayed only when we feel like it or feel moved to pray, our
prayer can easily become a self-centered experience. It
will become a spiritual activity we do because we "get
something" out of it. We begin to look for all those good
feelings which the spiritual masters call consolations. If
we get into this we begin to "look for the consolations of
God rather than the God of consolations." Most of the great
saints had strict rules of prayer they tried to follow
because they knew how easy it is to fall into laziness and
how much prayer needs to be a part of their lives.
This is reflected in the second mode of prayer which is
liturgical prayer. This type of prayer contains all the
necessary elements of prayer but it involves more than
ourselves. For example, since the time of St. Benedict, the
church throughout the world has been praying the Divine
Office, a cycle of psalms, readings and prayers throughout
the day and the year. Our celebration of Compline each
Thursday is one of those set times of prayer.
The Mass, likewise, joins our prayer to that of the
universal Church and is celebrate in a disciplined cycle of
prayer and reflection. In both case, the Liturgy itself
presents a subject for prayer. Throughout the year, we
offer our contrite hearts for God's mercy. We pray for the
needs of the Church and the world. We adore and praise God
whose work in our lives has eternally changed our lives.
And we offer thanksgiving for the redemption we have in
Christ. From the earliest days of the Church, Christians
felt the call not only to private prayer but also pray
together as the Body of Christ on earth. We share this
today and know that we are united throughout the world,
united in faith and prayer. There is a sene of communion in
this prayer since we know that the spiritual ties which
bind us through faith help and strengthen us in our own
efforts to grow in holiness. After all, Jesus taught us to
say "Our" Father, not just "My" Father.
I hope these reflections on prayer this Lent have not
taught you anything new. I am hardly in the position to do
this. But I do hope that they were able to let us look at
what we do every time we pray. It is God whose Holy Spirit
teaches us and inspires us to pray. May He continue to
bless us with that gift whether in moments of joy or
sorrow, hope or despair, together or individually.