Philippians
4:6-7:“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God,
which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus.”
“Why should I pray? I ask for things and I don’t get
them. I prayed for something and nothing happened. I wanted to succeed and I
prayed to God and I failed miserably. What is the point? Many wealthy and
successful people don’t ever pray and look how much they have in life!”
How many times have we heard these questions and
statements, and honestly made them ourselves? How many times does it seem
utterly pointless to pray? I fear we can become victims of misunderstanding
about prayer if we don’t stop now and again to review what prayer actually is.
According to Ralph Martin in his book “The Fulfillment of
All Desire” (Emmaus Road Publishers, 2006), prayer is “our direct, focused,
conscious communing with God. Teresa of Avila reminds us that the essence of
prayer is paying attention to God, speaking and listening to Him.”
Here is our answer, I am convinced. When we view prayer
as a child-parent communication where we, the children, simply ask for what we
want and pout when we don’t get it, then we have a very immature picture of
what prayer actually is. If we consider what Ralph Martin stated, then we
realize that we do not approach God unless we are willing to listen as well as
to speak. Prayer of supplication is good; our Bible passage assures us that God
wants us to do that. But there is much more to the purpose of prayer, mainly,
that we pay attention to God. It is that simple. If our requests are denied,
then we need to spend time in quiet prayer listening to the voice of God in our
souls telling us what He desires for us. If we find ourselves frustrated at the
seemingly lack of interest on God’s part in our lives, the so typical “Where
are you, God? Can you hear me?” feeling that creeps in so often, then we need
to ask ourselves what is our approach to prayer. Are we simply rattling off a
laundry list of requests, fulfilling a check-list of rote prayers and ending
the day by flying through a not-so-contrite Act of Contrition just in case we
don’t see the light of day? Then we really need to change our approach to
prayer. It is time to understand that every word of a prayer needs to be said
with love, concentration and heart-felt desire to commune with God. Ralph
Martin reminds us in the above mentioned book that St. Francis humorously
warned his brothers against meaningless prayer: “So dearest brothers, I
exhort you to participate in the Divine
Praises correctly and vigorously: vigorously, that you may stand before God
with as much zest as reverence, not sluggish, not drowsy, not yawning, not
sparing your voices, not leaving words half-said or skipping them, not wheezing
through the nose with an effeminate stammering, in a weak and broken tone, but
pronouncing the words of the Holy Spirit with becoming manliness and resonance
and affection; and correctly, that while you chant you ponder on nothing but
what you chant.”
In how many of those descriptions can we find ourselves?
Look around at Mass on Sunday and see how many people you can find who are
vigorously praying the words of the responses and prayers. How many times do we
say the rosary so distracted that, if it weren’t for the use of beads, we would
not even know what decade we were on? I think St. Francis is right. We must be
willing to put our entire selves into our prayers; body, soul, heart and mind.
We need to assume a proper prayer posture, clear our minds of distractions, and
approach our heavenly Father with joy and anticipation, knowing that we will be
speaking to the God of Gods, the Lord of the universe. How marvelous this
approach can be if we give prayer its proper importance in our lives. That
doesn’t mean we can’t be praying all day. Of course we can! As St. Therese
tells us, again in the above book, “How great is the power of prayer! I say
very simply to God what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences,
and He always understands me. For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart. It
is a simple glance directed to heaven. It is a cry of gratitude and love in the
midst of trial as well as joy; finally it is something great, supernatural,
which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.
With a set prayer time designated to true, loving
communication with God, and with every moment of our lives viewed as an
opportunity for spontaneous prayer, we should start to find ourselves falling
in love with our times of communication with God. As lovers treasure their
times together spent in getting to know one another through the sharing of life
stories, needs, hope and dreams, so too we come to God with that same
anticipation, knowing He loves us more than any earthly lover ever can or will.
He alone knows the divine plan for our lives. Why not spend time learning what
it is? Let us pray with all our hearts and listen with all our souls, and may
the frustration we sometimes feel only serve to lead us to trust in the mercy
of God.
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