Becoming A Person of Prayer: Part I

Responding to God’s call in our lives requires that each of us become a person of prayer. Reading those words may initially give us the willies. It may sound as if we need to flee to the desert or to a monastic cell and live in solitude, completely removed from the everyday “stuff” of our lives. But that is not really the case. We become a person of prayer where we are now, not in some ideal “spiritual location” we may imagine in our daydreams.

 
 

Most of us have heard people talk about prayer. But what is it all about? How do you really, practically, implement this “prayer thing” in your life as a young adult? Catholics On Call hopes to offer some helpful suggestions and insights through a series of reflections in the coming weeks on Becoming a Person of Prayer.

 

Some years ago, Bishop Robert Morneau, Auxiliary Bishop of Green Bay, Wisconsin, wrote a wonderful article entitled “Principles of Prayer.” It can be found in his book Spiritual Direction: Principles and Practices (NY: Crossroad, 1996). This is an excellent book that is really worth the read if you are thinking about God’s call in your life. We will draw on some of the principles discussed by Bishop Morneau in this series of reflections on prayer.

 

Bishop Morneau describes prayer as “loving attention” (p. 12). This is a very succinct description that sounds rather simple at first sight. But there is a lot to it. It contains two essential elements: (1) awareness of the presence of God; (2) a wholehearted response to God’s presence. When we pray, whatever prayer style we choose, essentially we are called to attend to God with love, knowing that our response is made possible by God’s loving attention to us. God is already there drawing us, luring us, before we ever think about praying. It is God’s attending to us that makes possible our response to Him.

We are called to attend to God with love. Bishop Morneau’s advice is simple, but if we are honest with ourselves, it is not always easy to heed. Most of us are easily distracted. We live in a world of constant sensory stimulation, and it is not easy to “center ourselves,” to pay close attention. I am crazy about sports. When I go with my family into a restaurant that has a television broadcasting a football or basketball game, my family members make me sit with my back to the television so that I will pay attention to the conversation. They know that otherwise I will be terribly distracted. I hate to admit it, but they’re right. I tend to get lost in the game.

In prayer, we are invited to take some time apart from the noise of our lives. It may only be fifteen minutes a day, but it is important that there be some “set apart” time. There are many techniques to help us quiet down and center ourselves on God or Christ. Simply attending to our breathing and quietly repeating a single word or a simple phrase (like the name of Jesus) can help us. Or we may want to pray with one of the psalms from the Bible that expresses our desire for God. Some days we will find ourselves easily distracted and that’s okay. But the more we engage in this practice, the more attentive we will become.

Bishop Morneau reminds us that our response to God in prayer is meant to be loving attention. Our lives as Christians are intended to be a journey toward loving God more deeply -- loving God with our whole heart, mind and strength. The great saints of our tradition have lived that journey in a multitude of different ways. The more we take time to speak to God and listen to God, the more we come to love God because we begin to catch little glimpses of God’s faithful, tenacious love for us.

Ultimately, prayer is all about spending time with the God Whom we love and Who loves us more than we could ever imagine.

Fr. Robin Ryan, CP