Recently, our blog, prayingalonetogether, won a prestigious recognition. It was named in the top fifty of all blogs on prayer and spirituality in the internet. The heart of our message is deep, committed personal prayer. I have developed a package of ten related blogs that offer a simple, clear and attractive invitation into this prayer form. These blogs will be presented weekly over the next few months. While much of the material had been presented before, I hope to simplify and clarify the material so it can be received in an easy to understand style that is both engaging and challenging to readers new and old. All will be less than fifteen hundred words. The title is:
Walking with Jesus in Prayer
Introduction
Everyone wants to be happy. God made the heart that way. Our problem is finding what makes us happy for the long run. The simple answer is walking with Jesus. The difficulty is that life has so many deceptions and illusions that it is hard to find the true Jesus.
One of the best ways to find Jesus is unswerving personal prayer. In this prayer, the I want to explain this type of prayer and give two different ways to practice this dedicated personal prayer. Carmelite spirituality teaches us that God loves us first and loves as we are in all our brokenness. This is our beginning point for all prayer.
Reflections on Prayer
When talking about committed personal prayer I am using the thinking of Thomas Merton and the added insights of Teresa of Avila. Merton says:“Prayer then means yearning for the simple presence of God, for a personal understanding of God’s Word, for knowledge of God’s will, and for the capacity to hear and obey God.”
Teresa says prayer “is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him we know loves us.” All prayer must raise our awareness of God’s loving presence. Humility is the foundation of prayer. It moves us to realize our total dependence on God.
We need to engage God’s Word. The most privileged way of this encounter is in the Bible but also in the experiences of our life. The encounter with God’s Word leads us to what God wants, a call out of our selfishness to generosity toward God and others. In this prayer, listening is the key. New insight into the reality of how God guides our way of living opens new horizons for humility, service and love. This dialogue is rooted in God’s love for us.
Committed personal prayer comes in many different forms: vocal, mental, meditation, Lectio Divina, and contemplative prayer. This dedication to prayer requires a discipline to pray on a regular basis. Committed personal prayer is an effort to bring prayer into life habitually no matter how we feel. It might start out as only several minutes a day but with faithfulness, discipline and generosity it will grow. It will gradually transform our lives. It leads us in a journey to be totally in love with God.
Five Points of Prayer
There are five important points in Merton’s definition of prayer:- • The first is that we focus on the presence of God. This demands a conscious effort to direct our attention to an experience of the sacred.
- • Secondly, we bring God’s Word into our mind seeking understanding.
- • Thirdly, this reflection should lead us to a sense of what God wants of us.
- • Fourthly we bring this insight to our life so the Word speaks to us and leads us forward.
- • In the fifth step, we live in obedience to God’s call. Prayer is all about life and the way we live.
Later, I will explain two prominent forms of prayer: Lectio Divina and Christian Meditation. Here I will briefly use Lectio Divina to further explain prayer in a more general way. Lectio Divina is a prayerful reading of the Bible, or at times, reflection on a profound personal experience.
As we begin committed personal prayer, the first item is to gather ourselves so we can pay attention to the fact that we are in the loving presence of God.
The heart is the deepest truth about us. The Bible speaks of the heart almost a thousand times. It is the heart that is the source of prayer. The heart is where we encounter our most real self.
The four steps of Lectio Divina are reading, reflecting, responding and resting. The first steps reading and the reflection, may take the majority of the time in the first stages of this new personal prayer. However, the job of reading and reflection is to bring us to a deeper sense of God’s presence. The last two steps are praying with an open heart and resting in silence in the loving presence of the one we know loves us.
In sum, prayer is gathering all our faculties to pay attention to the intimate presence of God to seek communion. We have a sense of a sacred presence calling us to life in love. This experience of committed personal prayer seeks to clarify the will of God in the concrete reality of our daily experience. True prayer empowers us to bring God’s love to our life in service of the Kingdom.
“Listen, I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” (Rv 3:20)
The single greatest obstacle to prayer is not to begin. The second is the relentless attack of distractions. The resolution of distractions is an on-going problem that needs much attention but ultimately it is a return to our focal point.
The Hidden Treasure
Scripture helps us delve more deeply into the gift of prayer. The parable of the Lost Treasure (Mt 13:44-46) is a great example. There are three steps in this parable: finding the treasure, selling all we have, and buying the field.The “finding” comes from a sense of hunger in the depths of the heart, a feeling of incompleteness. There is a recognition that life holds more than what we have. In the “finding” we often experience God’s love for us in our brokenness.
The “selling” involves making a commitment to pray. This costs us our time and comfort. Creating a schedule, building an atmosphere, and discovering and practicing a method of prayer all come at a cost: self-sacrifice. What we are doing is making space for God by letting go on God’s terms.
The “buying” brings us to the practice of prayer in a regular and disciplined part of our lifestyle.
The initial atmosphere for prayer is important. We need to minimize distractions by seeking the most silence and solitude that is a practical reality for us. For some, a candle or incense or a religious art are helpful. We need to be aware of who it is we are encountering. Secondly, prayer always has to be rooted in love responding to love. Thirdly, prayer needs to come from a heart yearning for faithfulness to love.
All prayer must begin with a sense of the loving presence of God. The material we read, the thoughts that lead to reflection almost always have a spark of light, sometimes quite intense. This touches our spirit and calls us to change. This is our own metro center that carries us from the mind to the heart and into life.
Prayer is about how we live not how we feel. Most often, God gives beginners at prayer a sense of peace and progress. Gradually, God weans us from the beautiful feelings to sharpen our focus away from ourselves and towards God.
Self-Knowledge
Genuine self-knowledge which opens us up to our true self-being always helps our prayer. It invites us to get real. In turn, when our prayer is authentic we get to know ourselves more truthfully. A major purpose of prayer is to draw us out of a world of self-deception, illusions, and a sense of self-importance that places us at the center of our world. The slow process of growing in self-knowledge leads to that gradual development of personal transformation called conversion which is repeated at several levels. The journey to refocus and recognize God at the center is only possible when we acknowledge our sinfulness and selfishness.With faithfulness to prayer there are changes. We slowly grow in patience. The possibilities of reconciliation come out of nowhere. Situations where it was difficult to see the other side of a story now often open up to four or five different valid points of view. The prejudices of a lifetime get exposed for exactly what they are, a lie. We become more sensitive to the needs of the poor and issues of justice. We see the conflict between our lifestyle and a responsible care for the environment such as recycling. This is the dynamic beginning of our Pilgrimage to God.
