Growth in prayer

Toward the end of our last article on “Growth in Prayer,” we mentioned “my sense of loss when, as happens from time to time, I cannot seem to find Him (God).”  

Often, when called to a new step in our relationship with God, we experience a great joy at relating to Him in a special way because, at this time, He seems very close.  We can pour out our thoughts and our feelings toward Him and rejoice in being so close to Him.  But this sense of His closeness does not last indefinitely, and then, we experience a sense of loss, deep or otherwise, when He seems far away, and cannot seem to return to our sense of closeness to Him.  

We have to become aware that prayer is not primarily built on feelings, positive or negative.   Prayer is a response to a call from God, a response made in faith.  And that response does not necessarily demand many words.  In fact, as our prayer grows in depth, it will probably grow, Benignus O’ Rourke writes in “Finding Your Hidden Treasure,” from “many words to few words, from few words to one word, and from one word into silence” because “the deepest communion with God comes through silence.”

Silent prayer, then, is a real possibility.  It is a form of prayer in which we remain still before God and rest in His love.  In the beginning, experiencing such a change in our prayer life does not come easily to many of us because we do not appreciate silence in any facet of our lives.  We are used to continual chatter with each other, always sharing, when we do share, through words and actions.  

If we experience a call to quiet in our prayer or any other part of our lives and respond to that call, we often give up after a short time of quiet, saying to ourselves or to others, as the case may be, “I can’t pray today.”   But, in fact, the time of quiet can be and is a time of very real prayer if it is a part of (or most of) our time of resting in God. If we have taken the step of being one with Him in our silence, we have moved forward in a very important way in deepening our prayer life.  

Having experienced a tremendous growth in his relationship with God, Saint Augustine wrote in “Confessions”, “Late have I loved you, O Beauty both ancient and new, late have I   loved you.  You were within me, but I was outside… You were with me, but I was not with you…”

For Augustine, this was a major development in his life.  He had discovered the real Christ.
But Augustine did not come to this major development in prayer all at once, and neither do we.  First, we have to know that it is a real possibility, that we will come to it through a period of lack of feeling when we may feel inclined to say to ourselves, “Oh, what’s the use of this waste of time?  I can’t say even the most ordinary prayers.”  

No, we cannot say even the most ordinary prayers because God is calling us to something different.  We need to listen and respond to this call–to go through this period of seeming lack of ability to pray.  This, however, is “seeming” only.  Our efforts to connect with God result in a real connection with Him which is real prayer.  But it is strange and different to our previous experiences; therefore, we find it very difficult to recognize it as prayer.

If we persevere, however, asking God’s help, we will come to realize that the silence we experience is not just a lack of noise. Perhaps we can recall times when we were happy to be with another human being, neither one talking to the other, both intent on a project of great personal interest.  If someone had stopped by and said with curiosity, “Why aren’t you two talking to each other?” we might have looked at each other in puzzlement.  Then when we stopped to consider the situation, we might have come to the conclusion that, while we were not talking to each other, we were communicating a sense of happiness in each other’s company, a sense of shared friendship.

Can we do this with God?  Can we communicate our love of Him and joy in His presence without using words? It is a real step forward in our prayer life if we can.  Communicating with God without words is a source of great grace and blessing for us.  But if our growth in prayer thus far has been development in vocal prayer only, then we have much to learn about the possibility of prayer without words.  

When God calls us to non-vocal prayer, let us respond as deeply as possible, trusting Him to lead us into deeper experiences of prayer even if, as of now, we hardly know what that may mean.