Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As I talk with people, one of the most difficult problems I’m presented with is prayer. Almost every person with whom I work at one time or another worries that they can’t pray, or they can’t pray properly, or that they aren’t “getting anything out of prayer”. As though prayer was a single discrete task that could be accomplished properly with an established series of techniques and in a set period of time. When I put it that way, we all laugh and no one actually believes that. But that kind of expectation seems to subtly color our evaluation of our prayer. And I am not immune from it myself.
I try to remind myself: praying is not doing, it is being. And if we “try” to pray, then we ARE praying. “Trying” to pray seems to imply that we might not be praying. I am reminded of a teaching of the Orthodox monk, Theophan the Recluse. He said that unless we are literally unconscious we ARE praying when we “try” to pray. He says that God welcomes our feeble and distracted prayers and turns them into true and deep prayer.
And I remember one of the Desert Father stories, about a young monk who decides to leave the monastery after a few years of practice, because he constantly has distractions during his prayers. His spiritual father laughs so hard that he falls down and rolls on the ground. “After 50 years”; he says, “I am happy if I can pray for 15 minutes without a distraction.”
St. Ignatius Loyola wrote, “Pretend to pray, and you will pray.”
Of course there are many different styles of prayer and many different prayer technologies (if you want ideas, come see me!). Different ones work for us at different times of our lives. But they are only means to an end–the prayer that the Spirit makes within us.
Blessings,
Mo. Laura
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COMING UP!
- February 16 – Bloom Guest Speaker: 10:30
- February 28 – Soup Potluck: 5:30
- March 5 – Ash Wednesday (times tentative)
- 12:00 Noonday Prayer
- 1:00-4:00 “Ashes to go” at church (call first)
- 7:00-8:00 Ash Wednesday service, with imposition of ashes**
- March 9 – Groceries Plus/Animal Food Bank In-Gatherings
- March 10 – Lenten Bible Study begins via zoom, 7:00 p.m.
- **Wednesdays, noonday prayer via zoom at 12:00**
