As
we are in the Time after Pentecost I thought it would be good to reflect on
prayer and some western and eastern forms of prayer.
First,
a quote from a western patriarch, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope
Benedict in one of his audiences said the following about prayer:
“Praying actualizes and deepens our communion with God.
Our prayer can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our
hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our
gratitude from the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer.”
This is the power of prayer.
Prayer is a dialogue between us and God and this should not be a one sided
conversation but the opening of our hearts to our beloved, our greatest good,
the one for whom we were made. When we pray we become fully ourselves since
we were made for God and our hearts are restless until they rest in him. In any
relationship, there must be communication and for our communication with God
the way we converse is through prayer. When we converse with our loved one we
get to know more about our beloved, and the more we know of our loved one the
more we come grow in love and compassion for them. We eventually would
sacrifice our self for the one whom we love. This is not only dying for the one
we love if the situation demands it but dying to our self that is sacrificing
our goals, ambitions, our time, our life putting the other before ourselves.
When we come to know God more
through prayer we begin to take on his nature. Just as a child begins to
develop the personality of the mother after listening and speaking to the
mother over time, so too after listening and speaking to God in prayer we begin
to develop the personality of God in ourselves. This mirroring of the
personality of the other allows us to be transformed and made in their 'image
and likeness.' This in principle makes it possible to have a deeper union with
the other.
We begin to imitate the other
in behaviour, we are able to understand their joys and sorrows, pleasures and
hardships, virtuousness and concupiscence as blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman
said, 'Heart speaks to heart.' Therefore our prayer becomes a 'wholly personal
prayer,' a communion of persons, our entire self to God.
Now going to the Christian
east for some knowledge of prayer His beatitude Teoctist gave this parable
"Once there was a young
man who went to his elder and asked, 'What is the use of prayer? Because I
pray, and I don’t see any results from it.' The elder told the young
monk, 'Please take my basket, made of woven straw. Take the basket to the
river, and bring me some water.' So he took the water, but the water always
leaked from the sides. The boy tried again and again, but always returned with
an empty basket. Now, at first, the basket had been dirty, but after awhile the
elder asked, 'Look at the basket. Is it the same?' And the boy said, 'No, the
basket is clean, bright... like-new.' And the elder said, 'This is the power of
prayer... it cleans.'"
I was taught by my mother
that prayer was good. That we need to pray, yet I never used to pray as I
should. However, I came to realise by God's grace that if prayer is good and
not bad why do I always put other things before it? Why every time prayer comes
to mind I have to rush my prayers or think of something "more
important" to do than pray. If prayer is so good It should be a #1
priority in my life. Yet it always comes last. We may have all experience this
at some point in our lives. We must discern that it is the devil and our
corrupt nature which suggests to us to 'pray later,' which we never do.
Thus we procrastinate and
leave prayer for tomorrow again and again until it is too late.
Prayer as we know is
Important.
When we die and if we are
sent to heaven we will be in an eternal dialogue, an eternal prayer with God
and communion with him.
Now if we pray a repetitious
prayer like the rosary we are only babbling if we say the pray for praying sake
and do not try to meditate on the mysteries. After praying the same prayer over
and over again we may get tired, that we do not get anything new. We must,
however remember that we should stop seeking for anything new and be satisfied
with what God has given us through prayer. Our Lord says in the Book of the
Apocalypse 21:5 "...Behold I make all things new." therefore if we
trust in God then our pray can never remain dry. This aridity in prayer
also helps us to grow spiritually. It enables us to not only seek fanciful
sensations but to allow our prayer to become a pure prayer of the heart. Prayer,
must not remain verbal, but become silent, for scripture says, ‘be still and
know that I am God,’ and again, ‘Go into your lonely place and pray.’ God
Speaks to us in Sacred Silence.
The Holy Spirit, Prayer and
Theosis
We know, through the
Tradition of the church, a few things about the Holy Spirit.
We know that the Holy spirit
is the third person of the Holy Trinity; The Holy Spirit is the advocate whom
Jesus promised us; The Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier the one who will make us
holy; He purifies us with the living fire which burns but doesn't consume; He
enlightens us with the Eternal Wisdom; He enkindles us with the fire of his
love; He resurrects us from the pit of sin with the gift of his divine life.
The Holy Spirit is God.
God gives us himself in the
third person of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who will lead us into all
righteousness. We are intimately joined with the Spirit at the moment of our
rebirth through the soothing waters of baptism. From that moment we are no
longer fallen creatures of God, but his adopted sons by his immense grace. This
means we become like God as the psalmist says, "I say you are gods."
Now this in no way means that
we become one with God's essence as the religions of the far east believe, but
we become like him, 'He Who Is,' good.
This is impossible to achieve
without God's gift of his Spirit, for, 'Who is like to God.'
Therefore God's Spirit is
truly our advocate.
St. Paul says in his epistle,
"... the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray
as we ought, but the very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for
words."
The Holy Spirit, dwells in
us, transforms us, and helps us in our pray for He sees us more than we can see
ourselves. The way in which the Holy Spirit works in us in contrast to how we
work by ourselves and the way others help us can be compared to us trying to
watch our face, which is impossible without the aid of a mirror. This mirror is
our meditation, our reflection when we examine our conscience. This, however,
is insufficient. We need someone to tell us the things about ourself which we
cannot see in the mirror, for example the back of our head. This is like the
help we receive with a spiritual director, someone who can guide us to see our
hidden fault which we, so many times are blind to see. There are, however,
injuries within that cannot be seen immediately for example brain trauma, for
which we need an x-ray to see the damage. The Holy Spirit is this x-ray. He
illumines our body and soul from within, so that the stains of our sin would
come to light. He purifies us through prayer as we draw closer to Him and He
draws closer to us. He sees our desire to stand before the glory of God but
also our tendency to fall along the way, and as a mother rushes her fallen
child, so too does the Holy Spirit rushes to our aid, comforts us with the
warmth of His Love and gives us the remedy for our souls the sacraments and strengthens
us with prayer.
Thus as St. Alphonsus says, ‘...those
who pray are sure to be saved and those who do not pray are sure to be damned.’
The more we pray the more we reflect the heavenly communion will have with God
when we die. This is the eternal dialogue with our creator. Thus as we pray
more we become closer to God and as we come closer to God the evil in us is
driven away for nothing impure can stand in the presence of God.
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