Adventures in Prayer #1

Pray without ceasing.
1 Thessalonians 5-17

With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit.
Ephesians 6:18

There are many thousands of books on prayer. Why? I don’t want to sound cynical, but prayer sells. If you do a search at Amazon for “Pray Always,” you will immediately find numerous books incorporating variations of that title.

Again, why does prayer sell? I think the superficial answer is obvious: we desperately want to talk to God. Perhaps, more importantly, we want Him to listen to us. In our most desperate moments we question why God should bother to listen to us at all. We question whether we even know how to pray. Paul’s invocation to pray without ceasing is beyond our comprehension.

Alongside the desperate are people who seek some kind of transcendence through prayer. Many of them seek correspondingly transcendent guidance. Others look for personal healing or some other tangible result that is far too important to leave to their own prayerful devices. Surely, someone has discovered a better way to pray.

Over the years, I have come to believe that this appeal to our prayerful insecurities is not always without foundation. Some of us may very well have reason to be insecure. After five years of Catholic schooling and daily mass and twelve more years of Catholic indoctrination, one would expect that I would have learned how to pray. In fact, I know now that I did not. Although my recollection may be unfairly distorted, all I recall of prayer was words. Words in a particular order, the Our Father, Hail Mary, the Gloria. We were instructed to grab our rosaries, hang on, and fire repetitive volleys of words at the heaving breast of Satan. I do not recall being instructed what those words meant, but in fairness perhaps I was.

The same was true for the mass, which back then was recited in Latin. As “Knights of the Altar” we boys were required to memorize reams of Latin, most of which we did not understand, all except mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, which we all knew. Again, it was just words, something to get through until we could make our escape into the clean, fresh air unadulterated by incense and candles.

The origin of my first personal experience with prayer is long forgotten, a suggestion or reference in class perhaps, after which I felt it my obligation to say seven Gloria’s every night before retiring, which I did faithfully for years. Seven became eight, then nine and so on, as I sometimes increased the nightly number to avoid any temptation to weakness. For years I could count on my fingers how many nights I had missed. It was no streak like Gehrig’s or Ripkin’s, but it was something of which I did not want to let go. Night after night I rattled off those prayers silently at my bedside. I don’t remember what was going through my head then, but it is doubtful the words held much meaning for me. I was more concerned with counting, counting the number of prayers, counting the number of nights missed. Somewhere along the way, God took pity on me and released me from my obligation.

In fact, I felt myself released from religious obligation of any kind. Maybe God existed, maybe he didn’t. If He did, maybe He was Catholic, maybe he wasn’t. But eventually I returned to the fold, returned from the dead cleansed of all my Catholic indoctrination, returned on my own because I had found Him on my own and realized He bore a striking resemblance to He of Whom I had been told as a boy.

I think it was Thomas Merton from whom I first heard of something called The Liturgy of the Hours, although I can’t be sure anymore. I found my breviary about thirty years ago in a small Catholic bookstore that no longer exists. Since then my morning readings have been the closest I have ever come to a prayerful discipline, which is to say not very close at all. For one, The Liturgy of the Hours by its very title is intended to be read, recited, prayed throughout the day, not just in the morning. Further, my breviary never seemed to provide me with the same supplication I got from reading more thoughtful works, such as Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation. I craved insight and wisdom. The Liturgy of the Hours provided psalms, antiphons, hymns, readings…prayer. Words. I read it out of a sense of Christian duty while my mind wandered to the things of the day as the words passed aimlessly by. Sometimes when I was pressed for time, I skipped it in favor of lower pursuits.

Lord, open my lips to praise your holy name. Cleanse my heart of any worthless, evil or distracting thoughts. Give me the wisdom and love necessary to pray this Office with attention, reverence and devotion. Father, let my prayer be heard in your presence, for it is offered through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Such is the Invitatory to the Office that I memorized so long ago without really understanding its purpose. Never understood because to me the words were still just words. It never really occurred to me that the Invitatory was in fact an invitation to prayer; that sincere prayer required a moment’s preparation in order that the mind might be cleansed of all other distractions. It never occurred to me that for those few moments God truly did deserve my full attention, reverence and devotion. That He deserved my love. And although I know this now, it still is extremely difficult to actually pray the words that I am reading. It is difficult to understand just what they mean or to offer them in the proper way as prayer. I keep trying: maybe someday I will get it right.

This is actually where I intended to begin this post. Paul teaches to pray without ceasing, and yet for some of us it is difficult enough to pray even when we are trying. Even when we are alone in a quiet room with no distractions and no excuses, attention wanders. Perhaps a time comes to set the breviary down and refocus. Sometimes it seems a hopeless task. I have even closed the book entirely, so beset was I with the concerns of the day.

Nevertheless, I take heart. I am one of those who is a sucker for guidance. For even reading about prayer is better than the forgetfulness which lies beyond in the world of work, responsibility and distraction. Sean Finnegan begins his book The Book of Catholic Prayer with this: “I am convinced that the important thing is not how one prays but that one prays.” He quotes an old mentor who advised to “pray as you can, not as you can’t.” So like the apostles in the garden, even though we fall asleep, willing spirits though we may be, I believe God gives us credit for trying.

Perhaps praying the Liturgy of the Hours would command more attention if prayed aloud, as it is truly meant to be. There is benefit in saying the words with our own lips and hearing them with our own ears. Circumstances do not always readily permit this. Certainly, St. Paul in commending us to unceasing prayer did not intend us to walk around mumbling all day. Ultimately, we must learn to pray quietly, to become fully recollected in God throughout the day as we tend to our duties. The Liturgy of the Hours, read or said six or seven times a day, is intended to start us along this path. It took me decades to fully understand this. Some of us are slow learners.