Growth in Prayer

What Is Prayer? Prayer, we are told, is the lifting up of our minds and hearts to God.  

How is this “lifting up” accomplished?  Young children in good Catholic families are taught to say simple prayers as soon as they can speak.  They learn to say such simple prayers as “Thank you, Jesus, for that good dinner” or “Keep me safe, Jesus, while I am playing.”  Perhaps they hardly realize the meaning of what they are saying, but as they slowly mature, they come to realize that they are talking to Jesus, and Jesus is God, and Jesus does care for them.   

If not before, then when they come to the age of preparation for First Holy Communion, they learn to say the prayers so necessary to communal praying in our Catholic faith:  the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be to the Father, the Apostles’ Creed and the Act of Contrition.  Do they realize what they are saying as they pray these prayers?  Probably not completely, but hopefully, they will grow in their understanding as they mature.  

And in this day and age, as they are present at Mass and participate in the prayers assigned to the faithful, they become very familiar with these and make them their own.  “Make them their own…” Does this growth in the most basic prayers really take place automatically?  No.  

There is nothing automatic about prayer.  It is, therefore, important that the adults who are teaching children to pray are themselves aware of the meaning and application of efforts to pray.  They are communicating whole-heartedly and consciously with God through Jesus and often with intercessions to Mary and the saints for help in their prayer.

This is true, not only of those who are teaching children to pray, but of all adults in their own prayer life.  Sometimes–quite often, in fact–we meet dedicated adults for whom prayer is simply the recitation of formulae learned many years ago and to which they are sincerely faithful.  Once they have “said their prayers” for the day, however, they turn away from the spiritual side of life and concentrate on the everyday demands until tomorrow or whenever it is “time to pray again.”  So for some people, prayer is a happening at a specific time, in a specific place, and then it is set aside to allow for the “basic things of life” until prayer time returns 24 hours later.  

But what is more basic than communion with God?  He made us.  He redeemed us.  He loves us.  He is most interested in our well-being.  Does He care about what we are doing, what is happening to us, as we go about our daily lives?  Most certainly He does, and so to turn to Him as we are immersed in the “ordinary happenings” of our life is a very important part of our being persons of faith.  

We are called to be not only persons of faith but persons of faith whose faith helps us to reach out to God in all the circumstances of life–directly or through the intercession of Our Lady, the saints, even those of our human friends who are prayerful.   

So prayer is never just something that I have made my own, that fits into specific moments or hours in my daily life and then is over until those moments or hours return the next day.  It is never just a matter of words which change little from time to time.  No, prayer is the expression of my relationship to God.  

Just as, in my relationship with my true human friends, I commune differently according to the ongoing circumstances of my life, so with God.  I share with Him my joys, my sorrows, my fears, my hopes and my plans.  And as I grow in my relationship with Him, I share especially my joy at relating to Him when He seems very close but also my sense of loss when, as happens from time to time, I cannot seem to find Him.  He trusts me to continue to trust in Him–to know that however distant He may seem to be, I await with confidence His moment of return.  And in that experience of His return, my faith and trust in Him are built up anew.