PRAYER PROBLEMATIC

The Prayer Problematic The range of the problematic of prayer is from a radical rejection to a serious endeavour to arrive at profound prayer. As a consequence of denying God, the atheist declares that prayer is absurd. Strangely enough, some believers in God consider it their duty to reject prayer by reason of the divine sublimity. Since God is unchangeable in his fullness, nothing can affect him: neither the prayer of praise as he does not need our glory, nor the prayer of petition since he cannot change his decision. Prayer, therefore, is only for our human consolation and, as such, is something self-centred. For example, we have stopped praying for rain and good weather. Such prayers were once the “oratio imperata” of the official liturgy. In the case of illness, if the medicine works, prayer was not needed. If the person recovered after hope was abandoned, it could have been an act of God. But could one prove that it was due to prayer? Some people say that from all eternity God arranged things in two groups. One group of things is fixed, like the workings of natural creation. The other group is conditional, that is to say, the events take place provided prayers were offered for them to happen. Now, since for God everything is in the present, he has arranged the events with the foreknowledge that prayers would be offered for them in historical time. So where does this leave us?

 We have to keep on praying for an event to happen in the hopes that this is one of the events which God had predetermined but made it conditional to our prayers which he foresaw. Such a highly mechanistic explanation can lead to ridiculous situations. The person praying will always want to know if she has prayed sufficiently and intensively enough to fulfil the conditions attaching to the favour or for precipitating the event! As a result, for many people the best way to answer the problem of prayer (at least of petition) is to reject the impetratory prayer altogether. They maintain that scientific or technological man should be able to confront his own needs without having to degrade himself by invoking another’s aid. He should help himself by making use of his God-given faculties without having to degrade God by bringing him down to the level of attending to the desires of man. The Spirit need not be domesticated!

An Answer to the Problem

            The best answer to the problem of prayer is to approach it from the angle of the theological virtues. But first let us consider a few other definitions of prayer. (Cf. J. Giallanza, “But What do You do”, in Review for Religious, January 1981).

a)     A dialogue with God, with one of the persons of the Blessed Trinity, and, by analogy, with the saints. This is a strongly psychological definition. Dialogue presupposes that two people are talking. Prayer can also be silent, as one can praise God and glorify his incomprehensibility by a silent adoration. Dialogue can be presumptuous, especially since both the speakers are not on the same level.

b)    According to St. John Damascene, prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God. This is a mind-will definition and, as such, is incomplete in itself, unless it includes the fact that God, out of his loving liberality, has called man through creation via the orientation of the human spirit towards himself (God) and through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Prayer, therefore, recognises God’s initiative as it expresses man’s response to God’s call.

c)     St. Thérèse of Lisieux: “For me, prayer is the upward leap of the heart, the untroubled glance towards heaven, a cry of gratitude and love which I utter from the depths of sorrow as well as from the heights of joy. It has a supernatural grandeur which expands the soul and unites it with God.” The movements, “leap”, “glance”, “cry” are the person’s own activities in prayer. The description would be incomplete without the presupposition of the complete dependence on God for all activities, indicated by the “supernatural grandeur which expands the soul…”

d)    “In my opinion,” says St. Teresa of Avila, “mental prayer is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” Here the activity of “sharing” necessitates “taking time frequently” for a mutual dialogue as between friends alone. Hence, an intimate dialogue that is exclusive. This is the friendship model of prayer.

e)     According to St. John of the Cross, “Contemplation is nothing else than a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God, which, if not hampered, fires the soul in the spirit of love.” “Inflow of God” is primarily an action of God, a movement from God to the person praying. There seems to be here a passive openness to divine love, and having the qualities of “secret, peaceful and loving.” But the effect is to be fired with love.

A Comprehensive Definition of Prayer

            Prayer is the most elementary religious act. It is the maintenance and development of the supernatural life we received in Baptism. Specifically, it is the maintenance, development and articulation of the theological virtues. God has infused the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Love into us. Prayer is our primary and most elementary collaboration with God in his continuous action of infusing the virtues. It is the act of the whole person; otherwise it would degenerate into mere enquiry and study on the one hand, and, on the other, a blind movement of abandonment to the immutable decisions of God. Mere abandonment to God’s providence in prayer would ignore its dialogic character. Abandonment may stress one truth, namely, the immutability of God (which, taken in isolation, would mean that prayer is impossible or unneeded) and forget the other, namely, that God is personally concerned with our affairs. The immutability of God must not be reduced to a proposition that can be manipulated in the usual categories of human thinking. It must be kept open for the truth of the Incarnation and Crucifixion, for the truth that God “changes” for the sake of man. This is the only possible underpinning of the dialogical character of prayer.

            If prayer is considered as the living reception (articulate or inarticulate) of the theological virtues, then, as such, it answers all the difficulties of the prayer problematic. Silence, for example, is an inarticulate form of receptivity; yet no one can deny its profound existential. The believing Christian who has received the gift of Faith at Baptism prays that he may continue to remain open to this precious self-gift of God as the supreme Knowable and all that he reveals in his Son through the Church. The believer will further express the joy of receiving this gift by acts of faith, adoration, praise and thanksgiving. Here the dialogue is complete. It is evident that prayer helps the expression of our receptivity to divine Love. Here prayer consists of acts of love for the supreme Lover and the joy of being possessed by the Holy Spirit. Finally, the problem of impetratory prayer is answered if prayer is also seen as expressively receptive of theological Hope, which is founded on God’s faithfulness to his promises. This includes the promise of salvation that is evoked in every cry for mercy.

Prayer, an Imperative?           The importance and obligation of prayer can be understood from what we have said above. Lack of prayer would dry up or atrophy our receptivity to the continuous infusion of the theological virtues or the supernatural action of God. Prayer keeps us open to the supernatural virtues and articulates them. Add to this the obligation of man to worship and praise God in definite ways, the primary way being prayer. Jesus Christ, by word and example, is the norm for prayer. Mt 26, 41: “watch and pray.”  Mt 17, 21: certain demons are cast out by “prayer and fasting.” As exemplar, Jesus spent much time communing with his Father. Jesus often addressed his Father before the crowds and the disciples in prayer formulas of thanksgiving and praise. Cf. Mk 1, 35; Mt 14, 23; Lk 6, 12. According to St. Paul and St. James, the argument for prayer is the same as for worship, prayer being the most elementary form of worship. Cf. Rom 12, 12; Col 4, 12; Jas 4, 2; 5, 13.

            The theological reason for prayer can be resumed in its necessity for salvation. In order to be saved one must possess sanctifying grace. Ordinarily, adults do not receive grace unless they ask for it and are receptive to it, cooperate with and dispose themselves for it. These conditions are seen to by prayer. In general, the omission of prayer for a considerable time results in sin. It is a matter of life and death for each individual and for the whole Church to learn how to pray and to help one another in the life of prayer in order to transform all life into adoration of God. In a special way this applies to all priests who by vocation are meant to lead the community in prayer; and unless he maintains a wholesome prayer life he would be a hollow reed producing empty sounds. If prayer is to become a virtue, and virtue is understood as the felicitous ease for doing our duty, then prayer should be the weave of our daily life; nothing artificial or formal but as normal and regular as breathing. If men and women did not pray at specifically determined times at morning and evening, they would soon forget to pray altogether. A life without prayer is the perfect path to perdition.

Flying Self-centredness

“I am thoroughly distracted, thoughts rushing to and fro like commuter trains on a busy platform. I can’t concentrate. My mind is like a marketplace, bombarded by destructive feelings. Memories of the past and images of persons who have hurt me stream into my consciousness, leaving me angry and frustrated. This time of praying could be better utilized doing something more practical.” Such sentiments summarise what many people would describe as their prayer. While that is true, they need not settle for it, because this negative experience is an indicator that something has gone amiss and needs to be corrected. Call it what you like, but actually this is a form of depression resulting from easy-going ways, decreasing vigilance, and carelessness of heart. Basically they have their roots in egoism or self-centredness. The person is not really seeking God but the consolations expected from him, some rest or security or a feeling of well-being. This is how religion goes off the rails: expecting God to fit into our plans and schedules, trying to tame and domesticate the Holy Spirit. When these do not happen, the selfish person is easily persuaded to abandon prayer as useless.

            On the other hand, the humble person is not taken aback, for he knows the frailty of his nature. In fact, the experience of dryness leads to acts of greater trust and willingness to learn the meaning of faith as constancy in the Lord, our rock and stronghold. Perseverance is the key. Not looking for success, not giving up, because it is that fidelity that will enable us to look back later to see how in fact we have grown in the awareness of God. Prayer is a struggle with oneself. And why not? In every sphere of life’s development, don’t we have to face challenges? Every area of life has its disappointments, apparent uselessness and periods of depression. So why not in the sphere of prayer, which embraces every dimension of our life? We are on to genuine prayer when we perform the routine tasks of our lives so as to perceive in them that our lives are not little, anonymous or trivial, but that what is timeless, eternal, is in the ordinariness of things.

            Perseverance must lead to the prayer of quiet and stillness in the Lord, like the psalmist who describes himself as a weaned child on his mother’s lap (Ps. 131, 2). The time passes quickly and one feels at one with God and with one’s fellow human beings and creation. One desires nothing more than being with the Lord. Consider these two seven-syllable mantras: “It’s good to be with you, Lord.” “May I be with you forever.” From now on, prayer is a window of wonder, light and joy; God is perceived as pure transparency and tenderness.

Not a movement towards a distant God but a sinking into a deeper awareness of one’s own life and to find God already there, more intimate than our most intimate self. Now all desires fade away, except the desire simply to be. To be present to the music of what happens, of seeing more and more profoundly, and of being amazed. What used to be a loving gaze on God is reciprocated by God’s gaze upon us, “amazed” as he is at the incarnate shape of love’s divine face that each one of us is.

“God wants us to sit for him, not that he may paint our portrait, but that he may paint his own – within us” (Daniel O’Leary, in The Tablet, 17 May 2008, pg. 15).