Session 3

Session 3: An Invitation to Prayer

Based on chapter three of Soul Feast, pp. 31-52.

Prayer as Communication

Most of us think of prayer as conversation with God, and rightly so. This is a natural way to understand prayer and a simple way to practice it. We can speak with God as we would speak with a friend, sharing our thoughts and feelings. However, when we imagine what prayer is supposed to be like with God, we tend to use more traditional forms, such as, praise, adoration, thanksgiving, confession and petition, asking God to meet our own needs or intercede for others.

Prayer as conversation with God is a positive way to express ourselves before God. However, if it is the only form our prayer takes, we may begin to sense that something is missing. This is because prayer is by nature, more than conversation and to limit its content to dialogue is to miss some of the most profound expressions of prayer that is open to human experience. Moreover, our “conversation” may in fact be more of a monologue than a dialogue that borders on talking at God, sometimes treating God like a cosmic butler from whom we expect excellent service. Now there is nothing wrong with bringing our petitions and needs to God, but genuine communication is a two-way street.

Listening is the first expression of communication in prayer. But how to listen to God? Communication is not easy, and in the context of our faith, how much more challenging is it to communicate to the One who is intangible, inaudible and inscrutable? Yet God desires our friendship and has ways of communicating with us if we are willing to listen.

If listening is the first expression of communication in prayer, the second expression is speaking from the heart. In prayer we need to speak from the heart with unreserved honesty, whatever truth is in us: our pain and grief, fear and disappointment, yearning and desire, questions and doubt, failure and weakness, prayer and thanks, anger, and yes, even hatred. The Spirit can help us to surface what lies within, but we need to make ourselves vulnerable or open before God. Opening ourselves to God means offering everything to God. Don’t worry, God can take it! Bring your concerns to God, “Why have you betrayed me God?” “Why can’t I overcome my wounds and imperfections?” “God, I don’t know how to pray.” You don’t need to be perfect. When we try to be perfect before God we are in control but when we offer ourselves in surrender, we pour ourselves out. That is when God pours in!

One way to speak from the heart is through intercessory prayer. Intercession is a concrete expression of the social dimension of prayer. It includes our concern for other persons, communities, nations, the earth and fellow creatures. There are different views on how intercessory prayer works, whether it changes God, us, or both, and how it can awaken and nurture our faith or trust in God.

An important aspect of intercessory prayer is our surrender and trust. It is important that we examine our attitude with which we approach God in prayer. Do we come to God from within an ongoing and committed relationship with God, or casually and at our convenience? If we our sincere, and offer our prayer with gratitude we can be confident that grace will be given in a way that best expresses God’s loving purpose, with which we are united.

To help you blend a simple trust and surrender in your intercessory prayer, Marjorie Thompson offers a process for your consideration on page 40 of Soul Feast. She also invites you to explore some new approaches to intercessory prayer by using your imagination rather than words as a primary avenue of prayer, or writing your own psalm or in writing a conversation, a dialogue between yourself and a person from scripture. These unique approaches to prayer are found on pages 41 through 43 and I invite you to consider one of them as new spiritual prayer practice.

This completes our reflection on prayer as communication. Before we transition into prayer as communion, I want to digress and talk about the idea of God and our images of God. Our understanding of God colors everything we do, and has great implications for our spiritual life.

Our Understanding/Image of God

An unhealthy image of God can distort our self-image, our behavior, and distort how we see others. The great Christian writer, C.S. Lewis wrote:

“There are three images in my mind which I must continually forsake and replace by better ones: the false image of God, the false image of my neighbors, and the false image of myself.”

As wounded creatures, we can project onto God our own human defects, disabilities and smallness as seen through the following unhealthy God images:

The “Santa Clause God” who fulfills your every wish; or

The “Gotcha God” who punishes you, who is just waiting for you to slip up and make a mistake; or

The “Puppeteer God” who says I want you to do this, and this, and this, and this.…etc.

Moreover, God is not a thing, the biggest thing out there. Nor is God a super-hero who comes in to save the day from the forces of evil.

The word “G-o-d” has become, in our contemporary world, a closed concept meaning different things to different people. People lay claim that their God is the true God and some say they know with certainty what God wants, even who knows God and who doesn’t. Furthermore, we use language to describe our experience of God. Words are symbols, they point to a reality behind the word. Does the word “God” point you to a deeper reality, or does it lend itself to becoming no more than an idea in your head that you believe in? My purpose is not to create a philosophical problem to solve. Rather, it is to say that in the spiritual life, the unitive knowledge of God in faith and love is not a knowledge of an object by a subject (which are separate), or like the knowledge we can acquire through the study of history or science. It is a far different kind of knowing we discover through self-forgetfulness, a kind of knowing beyond words and thoughts.

For our purposes here, when we speak of God we point to an understanding of God akin to Judeo-Christian tradition. The Hebrew scriptures use a verb to describe God, refusing to name God for the naming of something implies control and God is a reality we cannot control. When Moses asks God for a name, the response is “I am who I am.” Jesus calls God Abba, expressing warm affection. Jesus, in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets speaks of God as personal, passionate, concerned with human experience in the here and now. In a mysterious way, God is greater and more vast than the entire cosmos, but God is present in the smallest of places—intimately involved and present within us.

Today, we are asking, “Who is God in light of an evolutionary universe?” Science tells us that life is self-creating, giving us hints of what God is up to. God seeds the universe with life, and allows that life to work its way up and out and eventually gives that life consciousness. In Jesus of Nazareth God humbly joined that life and shared the power of that life with us, divine and human, co-creating and shaping the direction of the world. God and me, God and you, God and us, we are partners in the task of becoming fully human and in taking care of the earth, our common home, and of one another.

Prayer Part II

We now move to prayer as communion. When we speak of communion, we mean the dimension of relationship that goes beyond words, images, or actions. Communion transcends the particularities of communication. Just as listening and speaking are the primary expressions of prayer as communication, contemplation is the foremost expression of prayer as communion.

Contemplation has been desrcibed as “A simple gaze toward One who loves us unshakably.” It is absorption in loving God as a free, spontaneous response of the heart. St. Theresa of Avila calls it, “Awareness, absorbed and amazed.” One favorite descripion of contemplation is “a long, loving look at the real.” .

In Christian contemplation we move from communicating with God through words and thoughts to communing with God through faith and love. This way of relating to God is an end to itself, yet endless in its possibility. Contempaltion is about making space for the cultivation of the divine life within so that the God who lives within can come fully alive.

The anonymous mystic and author of The Cloud of Unknowing, a fourteenth century spiritual classic, reflects the tradition of the via negativa or the negative way, the idea that we can more reliably say what God is not than what God is. The hidden nature of God is shielded from human understanding by a “sort of cloud of unknowing” We can not think our way to God but what cannot be thought may be known by love. Through the sharp arrows of love directed toward God in contemplation, it is possible to pierce the “cloud of unknowing” and attain intimate union with God.

There are several pathways that can open you to an experience of Christian contemplation. As invitations to explore, Marjorie Thompson, in Soul Feast, on pages 45 through 48, focuses on three basic forms, namely, prayer of presence, prayer of the heart, and centering prayer. I will briefly describe them before we move on to some of the more familiar forms of prayer found within our faith traditon.

The prayer of presence. The prayer of presence aims to turn our attention to God in the present moment, in the NOW, so that we may become fully aware of the mystery of the divine that continually surround and upholds all of creation, including you, allowing ourselves to be touched by God.

Prayer of the heart. Prayer of the heart, also know as the “Jesus Prayer” originated in the tradition of 4^th century monks in Egypt. This form of prayer has become an important element in Eastern Orthodox spirituality. It’s most standard formula is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Contemporary expressions have amended the words, suggesting that you find your own prayer of the heart. A thorough description and a way to do this is found on pp. 46 & 47 of Soul Feast.

A typical format suggests 10-20 minutes but you can start with five minutes and work your way up. Choose a sacred word as a symbol of your intention to consent and be open to God’s Presence, ex., “Jesus”, “Holy One”, “Divine Love”, or “Mystery.” Sit comfortably with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word. Letting go of thoughts – when you become aware of thoughts, return ever so gently to the sacred word. At the end of the centering prayer time – remain in silence with eyes closed for a few minutes. Some like to say the Lord’s Prayer as a way to end the time.

At this point I would like to mention some additional ways to pray that you are probably most familiar with. My intention is not to overwhelm you but to call attention to the richness of prayer that is available in our faith tradion. In the last session of this program, you will have an opportunity to create a personal plan to help you establish a regular prayer practice which includes the expressions of pray that you find most helpful.

What Are Some Additional Ways to Pray?

Stations of the Cross. Usually a Lenten practice, traditionally practiced on Good Friday, as it coincides with the events of the Triduum. The Stations were developed as a walking meditation on the passion and death of Christ, used to be statio in Rome, Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. Today, there are fourteen traditional and biblical stations to choose from.

Almsgiving or Charity. Usually emphasized during the Lenten season, almsgiving compliments fasting, giving to others out of your abundance. It includes funds (from your treasure) and service (giving of your time and talent). As an expression of Christian love and hospitality it represents giving to the anawim—the poor, widows, orphans, all those left out of the system of wealth and support, inviting them into community with us, as one body in Christ.

Liturgy of the Hours (also called the Divine Office). This is the official daily prayer of the Church, practiced in monasteries and religious communities throughout the world. Since Vatican Council II, this form of prayer is accessible to all. It is a meditative dialogue on the mystery of Christ, using scripture, prayer and reflections. It aims to provide a regular practice and sacred rhythm to our lives. There are some very good resources in a shorter and contemporary format, such as Our Daily Bread, available through a monthly subscription. As a way to enhance the prayer, you can personalize your booklets with pictures, special prayers, letters, etc.

Practical Matters

The discussion of prayer would be incomplete without some attention to very practical matters such as time, place, and the irritation of distractions. There is no substitute for giving time to practice. Furthermore, we can never deepen our relationship with God unless it is important to us. To quote again the author of The Cloud of Unknowing:

“If you wish to keep growing you must nourish in your heart the lively longing for God. Though this loving desire is certainly God’s gift, it is up to you to nurture it.”

So find a good time to pray and a place to make this happen. It is easier for beginners to pay attention to God in solitude and relative quiet. You may need to be creative and grab time somewhere throughout your day. Distractions are normal and in time, you will learn to deal with these. The most important thing is to keep praying, even if it feels artificial at first. Expect to learn in the process. Experiment with different prayer forms. Know that God is with you. Seek out support and encouragement from spiritual companions or your church community. The more you give yourself to prayer, the more life you will find in it.