Well, I saw today about one of the most important things in the spiritual life namely prayer. Here's the first observation about prayer
studies have shown that everybody prays
Even atheist say that they pray you could almost say that the human being is best characterized as the animal who prays?
So, what is prayer?
Well go back to John Damascene very early figure who famously
Characterized prayer as the raising up of the mind and heart to God it's a beautiful definition good
But it probably is too one-sided because I think what that can sound like is that it's all our business. You know here
We [are] raising our minds and hearts [to] God it's our quest for God
Well that might be true of many other philosophies and religions
But biblical religion is not primarily about our quest for God. It's about God's quest for us [alright]
So I would say once you see the primacy of [Gray's]
Prayer is God's
addressing of us
That's why [herbert] [mcCAde] the great Dominican theologian says that
Whatever is good and true and right in our prayer is the holy spirit already
Praying in us think of even a petitionary prayer. You know when you're asking God for something authentic
Petitionary prayer is the holy spirit prompting you to ask for what he wants to give you know so the primacy of the Lord's
involvement
So both sides are important, but I think the divine side is more important
You know if I were to sum it up. I would say prayer is a conversation among friends
So it's our friendship with God [express] now in this lively
Conversation so in light of all that I want to make to some really simple
Recommendations about prayer to improve your life of prayer
[here's] first one
Take the time
So many years ago Thomas Merton one of the great spiritual writers of the last century
Asked by an interlocutor what what's the one [thing] I can do to improve [my] prayer life
and he responded with that phrase [he] said take the time so before you get to techniques and
[Theological] insights and all that
Take the time
Every day to converse with God it's most important step now that might mean
First thing in the morning it might be a good time like for me. That's a better time [for] prayer
I do a holy hour of right after I wake up a more some people might be the end of the day
You know that's a better more
prayerful time for them
Maybe it's in the car. [I've] often recommended the car can be a good place [to] pray when you're usually by yourself
If you live right you now in the la area or any of our major cities
You're probably stuck in traffic a lot, so it's a little monastic. Cell. You've got space and time to pray but the main thing is
you take the time every [day] here's a
second Dimension [L] second recommendation about prayer
prayer is the act of
finding the center
So our lives are busy they're complicated
We're about many things right this and that disappointment than this I'm leaping from idea to idea
Obligation obligation if there's something that draws all this together as one is
There some central place around which all of this complexity revolves to pray in many ways
I think is to find that
place
So again Merton said to pray is to find the place in you
Where you are here, and now being created by God [it's] it's lovely idea
Find that still point around which the whole of your life ought to revolve that's what happens when you pray
When kierkegaard the Philosopher said that the saint is someone whose life is about one thing
he might have phrased that as the saint of someone who prays say who's
regularly found with center
in the third dimension of [prayer] I think
to pray to speak to God with
honesty
one of the problems in the spiritual order is we tell God what we think God wants to hear we hide behind a lot of
Pious language that we think is appropriate you [know] for prayer and again
I have nothing against pipe language, and it serves a very important purpose
[but] at the heart of prayer, I think is a
clear and Honest [communication]
Think of a friendship you know if you're with a friend
But you never tell that friend or your spouse what you really feel what you're really thinking
What's really, bugging you? What's really on your mind? Well, that's not going to be much of a friendship, right?
so with God
Speak with honesty about what's troubling you
What's worrying you what's bugging? You what's delighting you?
Talk about the messy size of your life
You know we've all got them and usually we mask that with other people we don't share that well. God knows anyway, right?
He can't toes everything about everything. So why are you bothering?
Masking it from God
Let him know about your guilt. Let him know about your sin let him know how you're confused at sunroom. I
Love that famous story about a lady
Who've been in a hospital for many many months her husband was dying and she went to weeks and months of this terrible
You know agony with the husband and so one day
She came outside the hospital, and it was a catholic [hospital] dedicated to our lady
and there was a statue of mary out in front and
the woman just came out and she began picking up clods of dirt and throwing them at the statue of Mary and
They went to stop her you know the security man one of the chaplains with a sister
Nono held them back and said don't stop her she's praying and
I think that's dead right [you] know that here's a woman who was a woman of Faith
She had brought her husband to this catholic hospital. She was a believer, but she was expressing her great
Anger frustration
And you think she's not aligned read the phone sounds are filled with people telling God how angry and frustrated and upset they are?
so speak with honesty to God I think is a great way to
Fourthly and relatedly
Listen attentively
So the conversation right between you and God if it's [one-way]
You're doing all the talking whether it's in formal language or in this emotional expression. Well that's not much of a conversation, right?
I'm going to go say my prayers. You know. [I] mean. I'll say that and the trouble is then it's just it's one-sided
I'm just telling God everything
Do I listen to God do I listen to what he says back?
Now I mean does God speak
directly
Yeah, sometimes in rare cases the lives of the great [saints] think of mother Teresa who famously heard this voice
Of jesus and then didn't hear it for [fifty] years
But she heard this voice calling her to serve the poor support a lot of the saints experience
But normally God speaks and much more indirect ways right it might be
Through the scripture that you're reading
So when I pray the office for example is a little priest while you're reading the psAlms is
It you just expressing something or is god speaking to you through the pSALms [I]?
think of someone like ignatius of loyola who makes us very attentive to [our] own thoughts and feelings as we
Meditate as we read the scriptures so what am I feeling as I read that path, and what's that doing to me?
In my feeling desolation or consolation to use ignatians language
Could I construe that as god speaking to me somehow you know?
Here's another exercise could I even imagine?
What jesus would say now I know it's a little bit delicate because you can [can] somewhat just like projection
But you know based on our knowledge of scripture and the tradition and all that
Can we as we pose a question to the world can we really imagine pretty accurately well what he would say to us and responsible
Can that be a way [of] discerning the voice of God a lot of different methods - we could talk about but you speak?
but you also listen and
Then relatedly and finally the role of silence in prayer
You know that famous adage of mother Teresa. She talks on the spiritual life she begins with silence
You know silence gives rise to prayer and prayer gives rise to Faith and Faith gives rise to
Love and love to service [make] that's the way she does it, but what's interesting is what comes first is silence
We have a really noisy culture and with our machines now
[we] are constantly
Stimulating ourselves right with words and communication and ideas we're talking to each other all [the] time and listening to each other all the time
Do we fit in Silence?
allowing God to speak in that space think of course [of] Elijah here, you know with
The wind and the fire [and] the earthquake and all that comes by, but he doesn't hear God and all that
But the tiny whispering voice well you can hear a tiny whispering voice unless you become silent
How many of the religious orders are predicated upon?
Silence I think of the one most memorable spiritual [moments] on life was visiting the [Garonne] Shalt Hoods and the south of France
Really [in] like the alps area of france and that was the place founded by St.
Bruno's the mother house of the Carthesian an order that's
radically devoted to
Silence now most of that can't be carthusian, but I think we can learn a lot from this
Attitude you [know] Thomas aquinas said the will has two basic moves it
Seeks the good that's absent and so you know we see it and we go after it
But the second move of the will is it it fits in the good that it possesses?
so when you have the good your will
rest in it see and that's kind of a silent move if you want it's a
Savoring move. I think we're pretty good at the first one. We're seeking all these goods, but then once we get them
What do we do with them? We wrestle ego onto something else?
Silence Silence when you have the good of God a
Silent savoring of that good is key. That's a part of prayer
And that's why you know I mentioned the holy hour before and that's been revived
Thank God in recent years because you know as a priest. I have to pray the office and I can rattle through my prayers
But if I don't take the time just number one right don't take the time to listen in Silence
Then it is just a lot of rattling off of [words] so silence
I'll close with a couple of [recommendations]. [I]
Love the holy hour, so if you can do it that means a dedicated hour every day
to prayer
This conversation with God if you can find a time take the holy hour
Prayer before the bus attacker [that] also has been revived in recent years it kind of fallen away
After the council but I think now it's made a great comeback. It's revived many parishes
Spend time before the blessed sacrament with these five recommendations in mind, and then one of my favorites the Jesus prayer
Right Lord, Jesus Christ, son of God have Mercy on me a sinner. That's the whole prayer, but then [repeated]
breathing in with the first half breathing out with the second and
Letting that prayer become part of the rhythm of your of your very body
I
Pray the [Jesus] [prayer] now every day. It's important part of my own
meditation it
Doesn't get you anywhere. It doesn't accomplish a lot. It's very simple
calming
Centering prayer that draws you back into silence [it] does all those things
so take those five recommendations
Follow the deep instinct in your heart that is leading you to pray and do it