PRAYER: ONE STEP AT A TIME

    It’s not easy to discuss prayer because we expose our hearts in the process.  In addition to this, different understandings prevail, not necessarily easily communicated or understood: many perceive prayer as mere articulation, liturgical celebrations, or emotionally focused gatherings. Discussing prayer, Virgil’s ‘Amor gignit amorem’ (Love begets love), guides my steps. 

    Defining prayer, Augustine’s affirmation that prayer is the articulation of love offers a fundamental insight. Saint John Damascene reinforces this discernment by observing that prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God because only our longing of mind and heart makes prayer genuine (Filacolia). Saint Bonaventure’s Itinerarium in Mentis reinforces this comprehension.

    Saint Teresa’s affirmation also demands attention because prayer is an act of love where words are superfluous (Interior Castle), verified by Bernini’s portrayal of the saint in Santa Maria della Vittoria (Rome). This focus on the heart enhances the Magister’s affirmation: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5,8).

    Mother Teresa observes that prayer has nothing to do with asking and a great deal to do with putting oneself in God’s hands: a listening experience deep within our hearts where silence dominates. Edith Stein’s advice to take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands, and leave it there with Him strengthens this insight. 

    One insight that enriches our understanding of prayer concerns the need to focus on our restlessness, considering it clarifies our minds because “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be” (Matthew 6,21). Following Saint Augustine, we realise that our hearts are restless until they rest in Him (Confessions).

    Prayer’s understanding evokes the ‘Shema’ Yisrael’ (Deuteronomy 6,4): a listening experience where the ‘I’ allows the “Thou” to caress it without the fear of being obscured by the ‘It’ (Martin Buber, I and Thou), which reminds me of the old song, ‘All you need is love’!  But as Seneca reminds us, borrowing from Hecato of Rhodes, ‘If you want to be loved, love’ (Si vis amari, ama).

    Probing, prayer integrates a response whereby the voice beyond our restlessness awakens us from our drowsiness – “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (Awake, the voice is calling us, Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 140): an awakening that unbolts our heart as light illumines its darkened unheeded corners.

     Used to darkness, the encounter with the Light – ‘I am the light of the world’ (John 8,12) - can be disorientating. Rather than frightening, it strengthens our resolve to move beyond our confinements and embrace the ‘newness of heart’ known in conversion and lived out in prayer. This awareness involves a rediscovery of who we are in God’s eyes without the illusion of being more than we are. 

    Finding ourselves in a shadowed forest, having lost the path that does not stray (Dante Alighieri, Inferno I.1), we easily ignore that our life is but a ‘brief candle’ and a ‘walking shadow’, which proves a ’tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ (William Shakespeare, Macbeth, V.5). 

    What makes a difference is not the emphasised individualism shadowing the joy of the Good News, but an openness that challenges us to discern “how wine can come from water and how wheat can grow amid weeds” (Pope Francis, Evangelli Gaudium, 84). 

    Self-centred, our actions appear more significant, but their futility overwhelms us when we least expect it. Imitating Martha (Luke 10,38-42), we lose sight of the ‘opportune time’ (Kairos) to deepen our self-understanding by listening to the Magister. 

    Let not the ‘shadowed forest’ blind us, nor make of prayer an entreaty that seeks to influence rather than an opportunity to embrace the “Amor”! My heart stubbornly bolted, my Beloved waits lovingly until both halves are united, I can understand the significance of the other half, “gignit amorem”. The need to listen, rather than to speak, despite the temptation to babble endlessly, unlocks this stubbornness (Matthew 6,5-15). 

    This understanding of silence emphasises Kierkegaard’s observation that in prayer we often concentrate too much on God and less on ourselves, forgetting that prayer’s function is to change ourselves rather than influence God. 

    This focus intends to transform my heart of stone into a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36,26), because only a heart of flesh can boldly understand that “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”(2Corinthians 12,9). And yet, we desire freedom from the cross when we, as disciples, are chosen for the cross because “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16,24): if we want to pray, we need to take one step at a time and allow God to embrace us.

Martin


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