Just days before Covid and the pandemic became a thing and toilet paper became such a sought after and cherished possession, I was with my spiritual director when he asked me if I was reading any new books. I told him I was reading several books on prayer and that it was my hope I could come to understand what prayer really was. I have not forgotten that as he turned away, he was chuckling to himself.

I believe that if we took a group of 20, 100 or even 1000 women who had experienced being pregnant and giving birth and asked them their thoughts on what stood out most to them about that experience, we might well get 20, 100 or even 1000 very different responses—even though they had in essence each experienced the very same thing. The responses would be different because each of them was in some way unique. Besides being created that way by God, some would be younger, some older, maybe some much older—some married, some not—some really, really wanted a baby, some not so much—some women were very healthy, some were not—some had no problems with pregnancy or birth, and some were not so fortunate—some had lots of love and support, some very little and some none at all…and the differences continue. They all experienced the same thing, but from different perspectives with different expectations, with different experiences, in so many different ways.

If we think about it at all, many of us have a tendency to think that prayer is prayer and that we’re all on the same page, but like pregnancy and giving birth, it is viewed and experienced in so many different and unique ways. If you go to Amazon.com and you click on books and then you click on Christian Books & Bibles and you do a search for “Prayer”, Amazon comes up with not just a few, but many, many 1000’s of books on prayer. And you have to assume that all of these books are at least somewhat different. And all of the writers of all these books experienced the same thing—Prayer—but I think, from different perspectives with different expectations, with different experiences, in so many different ways. 

So what is prayer? 

Well, surely we all know. All of us pray, or have at least prayed before, even if way back  in our childhood, and if there are those of us who have never prayed we will most probably pray one day in the future, and we will somehow know how to do it when the time comes. At church, pastors throw the word prayer around like we all know exactly what it is. Doesn’t that mean it must be the same for everyone? I’ve never heard anyone, anywhere, ask what is prayer? So we must all somehow know, and we must all agree on what it is.

So what is it? 

The short answer is—it depends on who you ask. 

If you like definitions, the most comprehensive and easiest to understand one comes from a book called Catholic Christianity by Peter Kreeft. 

“Prayer is extremely simple: it is just communication with God, conversation with God, communing with God. Prayer can be either private or public, individual or  communal. Prayer can be either informal or formal, in our own words or in the words of the saints. Prayer can be either vocal or silent with words or without words. Prayer can be either active or receptive, speaking to God or listening to God (just being in his presence, waiting in love, open to his will).”

A thorough definition. It says prayer is extremely simple. But does it help me in my quest to really understand what prayer is? According to the definition, it sounds like prayer can be pretty well anything as long as it’s directed to God. And maybe that’s true. But how does it help me know what the purpose of prayer is supposed to be? Does it tell me why God wants me to pray? Does it let me know if there is such a thing as good prayer and not so good prayer. Does it tell me if we are expected to progress and grow in prayer—can I get better at prayer and if I can, what does that look like? Is there a goal in prayer—something I should be shooting for—is my prayer not expected to change as I move forward in my spiritual journey toward God? 

Or am I overthinking this? If there are answers to the questions I’m seeking to find, will it make any difference in the scheme of things—to me, to you, to God? Or is prayer just prayer? And does God even care?

When in doubt, I usually turn to the saints.

“Prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”  St. Therese of Lisieux

“Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.”   St. Augustine

“Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.”  Teresa of Avila

“God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.”  Mother Teresa

“My daughter…why do you not tell me about everything that concerns you, even the smallest details? Tell me about everything, and know that this will give me great joy. I answered, But you know about everything, Lord. And Jesus replied to me, “Yes I do know; but you should not excuse yourself with the fact that I know, but with childlike simplicity talk to me about everything, for my ears and heart are inclined towards you, and your words are dear to me.” (2; 921)   St. Faustino, Divine Mercy in my Soul

“Say to God: Do you want greater love from me? I have no more. Give me more therefore, and I will offer it to you. Don’t doubt. God will accept this offer.”   St. Padre Pio 

“Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.”   Mother Teresa

It appears that just as women can view pregnancy and birth differently and all those authors on Amazon who write about prayer can see prayer differently, the saints too can view the same thing (prayer) from different perspectives with different expectations, with different experiences, in so many different ways. 

Maybe by now you are beginning to understand why my spiritual director chuckled when I told him I hoped to understand prayer.

As human beings and maybe especially Americans, we have a need to understand things by defining them even if our definition is not that complete or even accurate. We have a hard time with things we don’t fully understand—we especially have a difficult time with mysteries like God and prayer. We have a hard enough time with movies with no ending. So we define things, at least for ourselves, to our own satisfaction. We often refer to it as putting it in a box. By putting it in a box we give things limits. God is one of the things I think all of us put in our own little box as well as other things pertaining to God, such as prayer.

But what if God doesn’t really fit into our box? What if God doesn’t fit in any box? What if God is infinite, so Big that no one person can even come close to understanding or experiencing him as he truly is? What if we can only understand that limited portion of God that we’ve managed to stuff in our little box just like the women who experience a different limited portion of pregnancy and birth?  And what if prayer is the same? Maybe that can explain why there are thousands of books on prayer. Maybe each writer only has their own limited portion of God and of prayer in their box. Maybe “when two or more are gathered in my name there am I with them” is talking about these limited portions of God that we possess coming together when we come together and becoming a larger portion. Maybe one day when we are united as one we (with all our limited portions) will finally possess the whole God and the whole of prayer. 

Maybe this is why we pray differently. Maybe each of us can only understand our limited  and unique portion of God we have in our box, and because of that, we all have at least a slightly different perspective of him. Maybe that is why there is no one right way to pray for everyone.

Prayer is all but synonymous with the spiritual life/spiritual journey. St. Teresa of Avila says “Prayer is the gate of entry to the spiritual life. Prayer is a door that opens up into the mystery of God and at the same time a means of communicating with him. It actuates the personal relationship with the Lord present in the very depths of the spirit”. As prayer advances, so does the spiritual life. The saints, many of whom are doctors of the church (Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Catherine of Siena, Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis De Sales) wrote extensively on prayer and the spiritual life. One of the most famous books on prayer and the spiritual life was written by St. Teresa of Avila and is called The Interior Castle. Teresa breaks the spiritual life and prayer down into seven stages that she calls dwelling places. The first three groups of dwelling places speak of what is achievable through human effort and the ordinary help of grace, but the remaining four groups deal with the passive, or mystical, elements of the spiritual life and are achievable not through our human efforts, but only through God. Teresa calls the seventh and final dwelling place “Deep Union” and says it is not only possible, but desirable for all of us to achieve this dwelling place in this life and that the only reason many of us won’t is because of our excuses.

No matter what our style or form or perspective of prayer is however, the saints tell us that there is a common purpose and goal in prayer.

If I were to judge by the requests for prayer that I receive, I would believe that many of us view the main purpose of prayer as asking God for stuff—for miracles. We ask him to heal the sick and the dying, to take away disease, to find us employment and income, to help our family, our friends, our neighbors, our country and our world with their challenges and difficulties, to take away our trials and our suffering. We pray to make things good, to make things the way we believe they should be. Maybe what we are really asking for is for God to make things fit in our little box we created that we call our world. And while God certainly wants us to open our hearts, our minds and our souls to him and to share all of our desires and concerns, his primary purpose in prayer is none of those things above. What he wants most of all is to change us. He wants to make us Holy—to make us Perfect—to make us be like Him—to think like he thinks. And that only comes through prayer. He wants this to happen to me and you as individuals, one person at a time, not just as one part of the mass of humanity. But before he will do this, we must first be purified, we must be emptied—we have to get rid of all of that stuff we’ve accumulated throughout our lives that didn’t come from God, all that stuff that has corrupted and damaged our soul. We must be emptied of all the concern we have for ourselves. Things must no longer be about us. We must no longer come first. He wants us to relinquish our entire future to him—to let go of the grip we have on our plans and our dreams we have created for ourselves. He wants us to see that all these things, these painful things we collectively call crosses that we are asking and praying and even begging God to fix and to take away from us are not ends in themselves. They are instead means to a positive end. These things we desperately want to be delivered from are slowly and quietly enlarging the capacity of our soul so that we more fully grasp the magnitude of God, so that we might attain to the fullness of God himself. These crosses are cleansing us. These crosses are ever expanding our God and our prayer boxes.

“There is a story told of a client of St. Thomas of Canterbury, who being sick, went to the saint’s tomb to obtain a cure. He returned home cured. But then he thought to himself: “suppose it would be better for my soul’s salvation if I remained sick, what point then is there in being well?” So he went back and asked the saint to intercede with God that he grant what would be best for his eternal salvation. His illness returned.

There is a similar account by Surio about a blind man who obtained the restoration of his sight by praying to St. Bedasto, bishop. Then he prayed again to to the saint asking that if the possession of his sight were not expedient for his soul, that his blindness should be returned. And that is exactly what happened—he was blind again.”
St. Alphonsus De Liguori, Uniformity with God’s Will

God will not change us until we give him our permission. He will not purify our soul or fill us with His life—we will never advance much in our prayer life nor in our spiritual life and certainly never experience Deep Union until we tell him to just go ahead and do it—just go ahead and do whatever he wants, whatever it takes, no matter how painful it might turn out to be. And when we give him that permission, when we let him out of that tiny box we created for him and strip away all of the limits we imposed on him, he will take care of our prayer life. Silently, slowly, without us even noticing he will increase the size of our box to hold more of him. He will take care of everything. It’s a choice we all have to make. We have to choose. And trying to sneak around and do it our way by not making a choice or attempting to give limited permission, is a choice in itself. 

Teresa calls the seventh and final dwelling place “Deep Union” and says it is not only possible, but desirable for all of us to achieve this dwelling place in this life and that the only reason many of us won’t is because of our excuses. 

Isn’t it time to let go of our excuses?

“If we would completely rejoice the heart of God, let us strive in all things to conform ourselves to his divine will. Let us not only strive to conform ourselves, but also to unite ourselves to whatever dispositions God makes of us. Conformity signifies that we join our wills to the will of God. Uniformity means more—it means that we make one will of God’s will and ours, so that we will only what God wills; that God’s will alone, is our will. This is the summit of perfection and to it we should always aspire; this should be the goal of all our works, desires, meditations and prayers.”     
Alphonsus De Liguori—Uniformity With God’s Will