Praying is Conversation

No one learns to speak without others. Praying is conversation. The first meaning of the word "pray" in English is not worship. It simply means to address earnestly. But most especially to earnestly address God.

Someone must teach us to pray in at least a rudimentary way. When we address or ask someone, we hope for a response. We are engaging in conversation. We pray to others in the old English phrase "pray, tell". We pray to or address earnestly the saints and angels. To the holy souls in Purgatory. Even, as is tradition from the ancient Church, to those we have loved in life and are confident they will hear and respond. All as members of the Body of Christ- remembering Jesus' answer to the Sadducees about the resurrection - He is the God of the living, not of the dead (Mark 12:24-27).

Prayer is sacred conversation. What is important in good conversation? Listening attentively and speaking sincerely. Good conversation has more listening than speaking since God has given us two ears and only one mouth. Remember the gospel story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42). Putting all else aside, Mary listens to Jesus. Our Lord says this is the best "portion". Does God listen to us? Does our Blessed Mother Mary listen to us? The saints and angels? When as babbling children we run to them, they listen. Even the souls in Purgatory, are they not learning to listen better? Think of someone who stops what they are doing and listens intently to a child.

We are lifted up in prayer. God begins our desire to pray and sustains us in prayer. And as a child lifts his hands to be picked up, when we lift our hands in prayer we are lifted up. We may realize that actually God has lifted our hands and picked us up. Our cooperation with grace in prayer is to hold on. When we are lifted up, God speaks to us. Have you never heard God speak to you? Did you compose the Our Father and the Hail Mary? The Bible? Does not the Holy Spirit give us the original urge to pray? And as we pray, poorly, tearfully, in anger and sorrow and joy, does not God deign to sustain us in existence? Even when we just cry "God help me", it is God who originates this movement in our minds.

Prayer Life

Praying and a prayer life are distinct. As one healthful meal is distinct from following a healthful diet. Thank God, all of us sinners can go to our Father and pray for ourselves and others. We can address the angels, saints and holy souls in Purgatory with faith. However a "life" denotes a continuous living growth. To have the continuous growth in a prayer life in response to grace requires the same kind of self-discipline that any aspect of life needs - physical, social, intellectual, work, and family life. They must be part of our lives in an orderly, regular and consistent manner.

Often we do not do the most obvious and simple things that are good for us because they are so obvious and simple. Or we can have another good reason: what is obvious to another is not to us. Developing a disciplined habit of praying can be one of those things. First, we must make a place for prayer in our daily routine. Do we not ask our Father to give us our daily bread? Religious orders who should seek perfection have a Rule. We can voluntarily make our own rule and adjust it to ourselves and adjust our lives to it. Begin by writing down an outline of the most basic, regular and customary things you do each day of the week. Start with Sunday and note the broad schedule of what you do. After you make yourself write down what may seem unnecessary and unimportant, you will receive wonderful benefits. You will have greater focus and control of your life. You will be empowered to achieve much more in your living. Do you have time each morning to greet God? To make a morning offering before you leave the side of your bed? Do you have time at midday to close your eyes and pray a Hail Mary? Do you have time after dinner or at the end of your work day to pray? Are there one or two days a week you can schedule fifteen minutes of spiritual reading? You have scheduled Sunday Eucharist? You do go to Confession on a regular basis? Take the empowering step of actually writing this down. Again, you are the author of your Rule of Life and can make future changes carefully. But write it down.

What is on your Rule of work, duties, prayer and rest? May I suggest that the place of honor for devotional prayer go to the Rosary? There are those who think people can outgrow the Rosary. The Rosary is our meditation with our Blessed Mother Mary on the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Exactly how does a Christian stop pondering these things in their heart with Mary? Read the Forty-Eighth Rose in St. Louis De Montfort's book The Secret of the Rosary. He warns us against many subtle ways some may persuade us to lessen our Rosary devotion. Providentially it is a help toward keeping not just the Rosary but all our devotional life.

One of the fruits that some great saints experience in prayer is rapture -an interior transport or going out of themselves to be close to our Lord in Heaven. We can all have a slight taste of this in a consoling feeling God may occasionally grant us. Yet, who is in Heaven with God? Our Blessed Mother Mary, the angels and the saints. Simply sitting somewhere quietly and praying to Mary and some of our favorite angels and saints gradually can leave us with a sense that we have been in their heavenly presence.

The Cross

A life of prayer will weaken without embracing the Cross. The self-discipline already described can give our prayer life a strong start but it can only bring us so far. To develop an everlasting life of prayer requires more. Now let me remind us of truths that I have always neglected. At best I have given them a complacent nod or, most often, let them in one ear and out the other. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Mark 4 :9)

Jesus said "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me". (Mark 8:34) We must remember penance for our sins and mortification to avoid sin. Self-discipline and even self-denial, yes. But what happens with a cross? You are crucified. We will be tempted to throw down the cross and flee when faced with crucifixion - if in our heart we have not embraced suffering for Christ.

Suffering for Christ? Is it not Christ who suffered to redeem us? Why embrace suffering? St Paul says in Philippians 1 :29: "For you have been given the favor on Christ's behalf- not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him". Later in chapter 3 St. Paul repeats these sentiments in speaking about the "power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings". He goes on to warn against those who are the enemies of the cross. Yes, we must not only humbly accept the suffering that comes into every life, we should actively seek the Cross in acts of self-sacrifice especially acts of charity.

Embracing the Cross is why the Divine Liturgy or the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the true source and summit of prayer. This is Jesus Christ lifting us up in His holy Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, Ascension and His Second Glorious Coming in Holy Communion.

Fall and Get Up

There are difficulties in praying. Our infirm hearts and minds want to do something else. We find our own prayers to be dry and mechanical. We are distracted by stress, worries or the attractions of this stage of life. St. Teresa of Avila in her life story sees our souls as having three active functions - willing, understanding and imagining. She says that while "understanding" and "imagination" are good, they must be under the will. We should focus on our intention to pray, our wanting to pray and to gently push aside attempts by our imagination or understanding to take over. I was startled recently to see a quote in my Sunday church bulletin that expresses it well. St. Evagrius of Pontus wrote: "Prayer means rejecting pleasures and banishing anger ... During your prayer, try to keep your mind deaf and dumb. Only so will you be able to pray."

Finally, persevering in prayer means everything. St. Teresa says " ... what great blessings God grants to a soul when He prepares it to love the practice of prayer, though it may not be as well prepared already as it should be; and how, if that soul perseveres, notwithstanding the sins, temptations and falls of a thousand kinds into which the devil leads it, the Lord, I am certain, will bring it to the harbour of salvation, just as, so far as can at present be told, He has brought me. May His Majesty grant that I may never again be lost." (The Life of Teresa of Jesus, p. 110; Trans. By E. Allison Peers)