Learning To Pray (by Fr. Jeremiah Shrock, CFR) I realized,
Learning To Pray (by Fr. Jeremiah Shrock, CFR) I realized, quite early on, that my vocation to religious life and priesthood was beyond me. Naturally, I was shy and quiet and often questioned how I could engage in a life of public activity that included things like speaking to and directing other people. Intellectually, I was more poetic than practical and wondered how I could help people, not with their poetry, but with their real lives. If my vocation was to bear fruit, I reasoned, I needed to remain open and receptive before God. In other words, if I was going to be a Franciscan and a priest, I first needed to be a man of prayer. Prayer, I have discovered, like my vocation, is beyond me. I don’t know how to pray, just like I don’t know how to be a Franciscan and a priest. A few years ago a deep sense of peace overwhelmed me when I arrived at the startling conclusion that prayer, like my vocation, is not something I have to figure out or master. It is already something that is happening within me. What I have to do is participate in it. St. Paul says, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rms 8:26). Since prayer then is not mainly something I do, but something that is occurring within me, my primary disposition in prayer needs to be one of surrender. Hence, in prayer I try to surrender to God’s presence and action within me. To help facilitate this surrender, there are what I like to call the “3 L’s” of prayer. First, prayer involves looking at God. If we are honest, most of our life is spent looking inward, not contemplating God’s indwelling presence, but contemplating ourselves. To be a disciple, Jesus reminds us, we must deny ourselves and follow him (Lk 9:23). In order to follow him, we must look beyond ourselves. This includes looking beyond not only our physical life, but also our ideas, plans, and agenda. In prayer we escape from the narrowness and rigidity of a self-centered world and allow God to reorient ourselves to a world more vast and beautiful than anything we could create. Our looking in prayer might begin by gazing upon a crucifix, an icon, or a scene from nature, until the One whose presence those images reveal captures our attention. As our looking becomes less self-focused, the presence of God magnifies in our lives, transforming our fear and anxiety into peace and joy. Second, prayer involves listening to God. As ironic as it might sound, God is always speaking, yet he rarely uses words to communicate. Many spiritual writers have suggested that silence is God’s first language. This silence of course, is not mere emptiness or absence, but a presence much deeper than words can express. Listening to God, then, requires a certain amount of silence in prayer, so as to attune our ears to Him who is beyond words. Since listening is difficult for most of us, the Church has always recommended various aides to help us, not only to open our ears, but ultimately our hearts, to this God who is always speaking. Listening to God’s word in Scripture, pondering a theological teaching, or examining the movements of God in one’s own life, are just a few ways to help us quiet our hearts to enable us to be more attentive to God’s presence. Finally, prayer involves loving God. Among all that has been written about God throughout history, the most probing insight into the nature of God is found by St. John when he writes, “God is love” (1 John 4:7). A hallmark of every true lover is that they desire not just gifts, praise and acknowledgement from their beloved, but the beloved himself. As strange as this might sound, God desires “us” more than anything else. The gift of ourselves to God in prayer by looking at Him and listening to Him allows us to love God more deeply. What we see and hear in prayer is not an angry or distant God, but a God who is patient and near. This creates in us a greater desire to love God, not merely during our times of prayer, but throughout the day. The more purely we love God, the more easily we do his will. This cannot occur, of course, without a life of prayer, since it is in prayer where we find the inspiration and the strength to love God more each day. Prayer then, at least the way I have come to understand it, involves some form of looking, listening and loving. I have found on those days when prayer is difficult that a mere “look” towards God or a simple listening to him in Scripture, not only rekindles my love for God, but awakens within me a stronger sense of his presence. Even though we will never fully understand prayer and often feel like we do not pray well, one thing is certain: without prayer, life will overwhelm us. Only by looking at God, listening to him and loving him, am I able to become the Franciscan, priest and the person God has called me to be. This begins with the simple request that will not go unanswered: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1). -- source link
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