Having established the fact that prayer is a relationship of love and after reflecting on Jesus’ own teaching regarding prayer, we are now more equipped to consider the question, How do I pray? There are, of course, entire books and courses devoted to this question. For our purposes here, I will simply offer two practical suggestions that can assist a soul in their personal prayer.
The first is this: we should pray in the way, or choose the way of prayer for us, that most fosters love. Prayer is always a response to God’s initiative. The Catechism of the Catholic Church expresses this truth most beautifully, “It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours.”[1]It is God then who is seeking us first. Our own desire for prayer is us responding to God’s love for us. Hence, in prayer, whether we realize it or not, we are responding to God’s presence. Therefore, if we wish to grow in prayer, an important question to ask ourselves is, where is God’s presence for us right now? In other words, what is opening your heart and mind most to God, and therefore enabling you to give yourself more deeply to Him? Is it in the Scriptures, the rosary, the Jesus prayer, or sitting in silence in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Is it with Our Lady, in the current liturgical season, or something else? Wherever God’s presence is for you, this is where you should go in prayer for the simple reason that this is where God is for you right now. This place might change next week, next month, or next year. If that occurs, we adjust to where God’s presence is for us then. Meanwhile, wherever God is drawing me today is where I must pray.
Throughout my entire religious life, and even before I entered the Franciscans, everyone from whom I sought advice regarding prayer and the spiritual life kept reiterating to me the importance of doing lectio divina, i.e., prayerfully reflecting on the Scriptures. They told me this for good reason. Lectio Divina is an ancient and very solid way of prayer. It is time-tested, approved by many saints, theologians, and popes and yet no matter how hard I tried doing lectio divina, it never seemed to work for me. For many years, each morning I would attempt to do lectio divina in the way it was taught to me and almost every single time I felt like I was banging my head against the wall. Finally, I spoke with my spiritual director about this one day and he gave me what I consider to be the best piece of advice regarding prayer that I ever received. He told me,” Pray as you can, and not as you can’t.” But then he also added, “Nor as you think you should!” Is Lectio divina a good way of praying? Yes, it is, however, it might not be the place where God is for you right now. Find the place where God is and go there until he leads you elsewhere.
I have observed from older members in my religious community and those who are more mature in the spiritual life, that very often, as a soul progresses in prayer, they only have one or two ways of praying, outside of liturgical prayer, that they find helpful. Once they discover these one or two ways of praying, they root themselves deeply in them. I have never met anyone who simply does it all regarding prayer. For those who might try and do everything in prayer, very often they end up becoming scattered, both mentally and spiritually. This doesn’t mean that in prayer we shouldn’t experiment and try other things, however, what is most important is finding the place where this relationship of love with God is most accessible for me and then enter deeply into that way.
The second suggestion that I wish to offer regarding personal prayer is that, however it is we are praying, we must always bring ourselves to prayer! As we have been reflecting on throughout this chapter, prayer is a relationship of love, and this relationship involves two people, namely God and you. In my years as a spiritual director, I have come to realize how much of ourselves we do not bring to prayer at times. When somebody is sharing with me some pain or confusion they are experiencing, I will often ask them, “Are you bringing this to the Lord in prayer? Specifically, are you bringing this difficulty into the rosary, lectio divina, the Jesus prayer, or however it is that you are praying? And if so, what do you perceive God is saying about it in your prayer?” Interestingly, the answer to my question is almost always no. They are not bringing their struggles to prayer. For some strange reason, we don’t really bring ourselves to God in prayer all the time, or maybe even never, and then we wonder why God seems so far away. The truth is, God is not far away, we are!
A major obstacle that I see in people’s relationship with God, is that they are afraid to bring themselves as they really are to prayer. I’m not suggesting an overly emotional and dramatic performance when we come to prayer, I’m simply suggesting that we pray authentically by being honest with ourselves and our lives. Occasionally, I have experienced resistance to this advice and a few people have responded by saying to me “God deserves worship, praise, and adoration regardless of how I feel.” To which I reply, “Amen! God does deserve worship, praise, and adoration regardless of how we feel. However, if prayer is a relationship of love and one person in that relationship is ‘checked out’ or not being authentic, how can that relationship grow and mature? Specifically, how can you, and your relationship with God, including your prayer life, ever grow and mature if you’re not bringing yourself to prayer?”
The answer is that it can’t. If we don’t sincerely bring ourselves to prayer, prayer will always remain on the level of duty and obligation. Is prayer a duty and obligation that we all have? Yes, it is, but it is also so much more. It is a relationship of love.
There remains one more aspect about prayer that needs attention. If prayer really is a relationship of love, then the whole purpose, or our primary concern in prayer, is to enter more deeply into that relationship. Therefore, we must not come to prayer seeking supernatural experiences, things like visions, words, or locutions. If God believes those things can aid us in our relationship with him, he will give them to us only when he deems necessary. If we are constantly seeking those things, or even praying for the sole purpose of some sort of spiritual experience, then we are not entering more deeply into this relationship of love with God. Rather, we are using God and prayer as a means for our own self-affirmation, because we are approaching prayer with an agenda that is ultimately self-oriented.
Any relationship that is focused more on the individual self and not the other will end quickly because it is not a relationship, but a means for the enhancement of one’s own ego. Our only agenda in prayer should be to give ourselves to God in love and therefore enter more deeply into this relationship of love. If we do that as sincerely as we can each day, with all our human frailty and tendency towards self-obsession, we will grow exponentially in our prayer life and, more importantly, in our relationship with God.
[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church #2560
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