The Importance of Prayer

Prayer is the greatest act of a human being on earth. Without prayer, faith in God cannot exist. No one without a life of prayer survives on the spiritual road. John of the Cross tells us that God helps us to pray when we begin a deliberate attempt to find him. Prayer keeps us spiritually healthy and provides the stamina to continue moving ahead into the unknown. Prayer, the great sustainer of faith, connects us with a power far beyond our own capabilities. We need this power to keep God on our radar screen and to stay on course.            

We can pray and not realize we are praying. Studies have shown that even unbelievers pray when they are in grave danger. Prayer can be very simple. Therese of Lisieux said, “I simply say to God what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences, and he always understands me.” Prayer can be a cry of the heart, a sincere ‘help,’ an act of contrition, a sigh of gratitude, a word of praise, a song of love, an expression of joy, a meditative read or sacred silence. A repetitive prayer, like the rosary, calms the mind and quiets the heart. Deep inside, we long for God. Prayer occurs when our longing bonds with God’s passionate longing for us. Prayer quenches the thirst we have for God, creates a holy beauty beyond space and time and unites us to the ineffability of God. Anything we do that fosters a personal meeting with God is prayer. Prayer strengthens our trust in God and reveals our acceptance of life, be it poor or rich, sick or healthy, short or long.   

Consolations during prayer make it easier to pray, but a more heroic prayer is not dependent on delights and therefore requires effort. Dryness or distractions in prayer do not mean that our prayer is not valid or worthwhile. Good feelings at prayer are nice, but we should not rely on them. We pray to God because he is who he is and we want to know him better. Daily difficulties in our busy lives prompt us to ask God for strength and courage. However, being busy with many things is not an excuse to defer prayer. Ironically, we need to pray the most when we do not have time for prayer. 

Edith Stein wrote, “Prayer is the communication of the soul with God. God is love, and love is goodness giving itself away. It is a fullness of being that does not want to remain enclosed in itself, but rather to share itself with others, to give itself to them, and to make them happy.” Prayer, the essence of our faith, lead us out of ourselves and into sound actions. Edith continues, “Prayer is the highest achievement of which the human spirit is capable. But it is not merely a human achievement. Prayer is a Jacob’s ladder in which the human spirit ascends to God and God’s grace descends to people.” The outcome of sound prayer is some type of good service. Communion with God results in sharing sound ideas and doing good works. Gazing at the beauty of God’s creation nourishes our creative faculties. The realization of faith in action is so badly needed today. Through reflective prayer, we can develop a deeper knowledge of God, others and ourselves. However, the criteria of our prayer is our life outside of prayer. Our good works are motivated by faith and bring us back to prayer. Ambrose wrote: “To be active in works and unfaithful in heart is like raising a beautiful and lofty building on an unsound foundation. The higher the building, the greater the fall. Without the support of faith, good works cannot stand. As the flower blossoms before the fruit so does faith precede good works. Faith is the ear of the soul, mercy the work of the hands”  

Grace is like divine energy that keeps us moving along the bumpy road of life. God is not responsible for the adverse events along this road. His goodness is found through these events when they teach us humility, forgiveness and repentance. How sweet are the ways of faith. Faith, in God fuels a certain peace in suffering because it unites our personal suffering with Jesus’ suffering. We repeatedly sin and fall, but take Jesus’ hand and stand up again. We are forgiven and Jesus continues to call and guide us. We persevere by repeatedly striving to live as good Christians. 

The House of God

Edith Stein wrote, “We stopped in at the cathedral for a few minutes; and, while we looked around in respectful silence, a woman carrying a market basket came in and knelt down in one of the pews to pray briefly. This was something entirely new to me. To the synagogues or to the Protestant churches which I had visited, one went only for services. But here was someone interrupting her everyday shopping errands to come into this church, although no other person was in it, as though she were here for an intimate conversation. I could never forget that.” As we step over the threshold of a Catholic church, we move from a noisy, ultra busy, confusing city to a quiet, calm, peaceful refuge. The church is a serene place to dwell upon the beauty, goodness, mystery, love and truth of God. It is like no other place on earth and its doors welcome a diversity of people to rest in the loving presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament. We come to this deepest, richness and fullness of Christianity as sinners, in need of God’s mercy and love. We find Jesus with his great and loving heart and open arms. He says to each one of us, “Come to me.” When we walk around an old, quiet Catholic church, we may see the flicker of many candle flames in candle racks at side altars. Each flame represents a prayer. Someone may be saying a rosary at Mary’s altar, someone else may be making the Stations of the Cross, and yet another kneeling in a pew at the back of the church and praying quietly. All is hushed in an atmosphere of the sacred, the holy. As we rest quietly in church, we reflect and absorb the teachings of Jesus and the beauty of faith. This gives us a greater ability to find Jesus in the distressing people, events and places outside. We live our faith in our church, home and the marketplace. Teresa of Avila confirms this: “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good’ and yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.” 

Years ago the Church was referred to as Holy Mother Church, and rightly so. She is the haven and a refuge from the hurts and horrors on this earth. She is like a mother who holds her young child’s hand as they cross a busy, noisy street or walk down a crowded, bustling sidewalk. Indeed, these days we need a strong mother who protects and defends us from the exigencies of modern society. Be careful, she says to us. Remember we are children of God and we must do our best and trust in Divine Providence. The Church helps us to know our purpose in life, to conform our actions to God’s will, and to interpret events of life in the light of faith. True peace and happiness will follow in their wake. Indeed, when our days on earth come to a close, we can say with Bernard of Clairvaux “Jesus, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breast. But sweeter far thy face to see, and in thy presence rest.” 

Holy Mother Church supports and strengthens us as we strive to live the words of M. S. Lowndes, “No matter what we do in life we need to show we stand as men and women who trust in God with integrity in hand. For God wants us to live in the light of the truth we have heard being faithful in the little things and standing on his word. For many may move the boundaries from what they know is right conforming to what the world may say and feeling it’s justified. But God looks deep within the heart exposing our every thought for there is nothing that we can hide from the searching eyes of the Lord. And he will bring it out one day into his radiant light then we’ll be found as we really are with nowhere to run and hide. We must decide to live a life clothed with integrity so nothing will hinder what God would do in us and our ministries. Then others we come in contact with will see we stand for the truth not compromising the ways of God for what the world would do.”