The Stages of Prayer
Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
August 1, 2018
I often find myself being asked “remember me in
your prayers.” I often find myself
saying, “You’re in my prayers.”
Sometimes these prayers are verbalized and I mention the people by name and concern in Morning Prayer each day or
in my private devotions; sometimes I do not vocalize them, but think on them
and feel a yearning for the good of the person.
On occasion, I feel that maybe I have fallen down by not remembering to
actually say words for these prayers. But
this sense of guilt is misplaced, and misunderstands what prayer is.
Fr. Mark Thibodeaux, S.J., in his book Armchair Mystic, notes that there are
four stages of prayer: when we talk at God, when we talk to God, when we listen to God, and when we simply are being with God. As Paul writes, “Likewise
the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for
we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with
sighs too deep for words” (Romans
8:26). Yearning
is a prayer, as is silent attentiveness with nothing in our mind at all.
St. John Damascene in the 7th century defined prayer
as “raising your mind and heart to God” as well as “asking good things from
God.” Petitionary prayer, with or
without verbal expression, is only part of what prayer is. Lifting our heart to God, i.e., centering our
emotions in God, is the real substance of prayer life. And this is so whether we are kneeling before
the cross or an image of our Lord, are sitting in quiet contemplation, or are
hard at work with our hearts filled with God and yearning for the best for the
people in our intentions.
My rule of life is to try to pray Evening and Morning Prayer
each day. The reason I find this so
important is that the habit of reciting the psalms, regularly reading the
Bible, and reciting the set prayers helps me get through the “speaking at God”
stage and move on to the other stages. The
Psalter is a book of all the emotions, a book of the heart. Praying it becomes a great dialogue, between
me and God, to be sure, but also between me and my emotions, and me and the “great
cloud of witnesses” who have gone on before and left us the prayers. All this frames and informs our whole life so
that we give thanks to God at all times and in all places, and likewise yearn for
blessing at all times and all places, both for ourselves and others. By not
focusing merely on “talking to God” and extemporaneously expressing our desires
and emotions, we learn that our emotions and desires are fellow creatures that
we need to harness and use, not our spiritual masters or our true self.
Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+
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