Many people have very little understanding of what prayer is. And even more do not understand that prayer goes far deeper than most think.
Many think that praying is setting aside a few minutes each day in the morning, in the night, or both, to thank God, to petition Him for their needs and the needs of others, to offer a Hail Mary or Our Father, etc... And while this is a part of it, this most certainly is barely scratching the surface of what having a prayer life means.
A life of true prayer leads us much deeper than this.
The principal object of prayer is union with God for the glory of God - both in this life, and, if we are faithful and persevere, in the next life in heaven.
"Prayer should, therefore, nourish us in faith, hope and charity, develop the other virtues and effectually tend to make us grow in holiness. This is its end, and by this we can judge whether our prayer is well made, and whether we devote enough time to prayer." [The Ways of Mental Prayer by Rev. Dom Vitalis Lehodey]
Even if one may spend time praying each day, it is stale and fruitless if the virtues are not increasing in that soul and they are not growing in holiness. "God places the treasure of His graces at our disposal, and that key is prayer," according to Rev. Dom Vitalis Lehodey.
Much moreso, according to the spiritual doctrine of all the saints and the Church, if one is in a state of mortal sin - serious and grave sin that one has committed willingly - it is impossible to arrive at perfection, pray as much as one might. God will still send his graces because He desires that every soul be saved and with Him one day in heaven, but to a soul in this state, they would be more foundational graces such as the grace of repentance and the desire to amend one's life. If the soul would respond to these necessary graces, it would then open the floodgates of grace into His soul to allow graces to flow freely and move the soul along the path of perfection. That is why the first advancement in the interior life begins in ridding oneself of mortal sin, according to St. Francis de Sales in his spiritual treatise Introduction to the Devout Life.
In regards to prayer, many many saints have reiterated over and over again that prayer is necessary in a soul that desires to be alive in Christ. "As the body cannot live without the soul, so the soul without prayer is dead and fetid," said St. John Chrysostom.
The Catechism explains that there are three kinds of prayer:
1. Vocal prayer (Formal prayer)
2. Mental prayer (Meditative prayer to the prayer of simplicity)
3. Contemplative prayer (Prayer of Quiet, Ecstatic union, and then Transforming union or Mystical Marriage as it's sometimes called)
We have great saints like St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross who give us further counsel about each of the forms of prayer.
Vocal Prayer
Christ taught us forms of vocal prayer by giving us the Our Father. Vocal prayer essentially is that prayer which we say - either out loud or in our hearts - that was written by someone else. Reading the Psalms is also a form of vocal prayer..
The Catechism teaches...
The need to involve the senses in interior prayer corresponds to a requirement of our human nature. We are body and spirit, and we experience the need to translate our feelings externally....This need also corresponds to a divine requirement. God seeks worshippers in Spirit and in Truth, and consequently living prayer that rises from the depths of the soul. He also wants the external expression that associates the body with interior prayer, for it renders him that perfect homage which is his due...Prayer is internalized to the extent that we become aware of him "to whom we speak;" Thus vocal prayer becomes an initial form of contemplative prayer. [CCC #2702-2704]
Mental Prayer
The habit of mental prayer must be cultivated because due to our fallen nature, it does not come easily. This is the form of prayer that St. Teresa of Avila called the "gateway to all other higher forms of prayer."
Mental prayer is a kind of active prayer [by active prayer, he means that it requires a certain amount of our energy and work and a cooperation of our human faculties of imagination, memory, and will] in which a person raises his mind to God by considerations of by a simple look, and his will by pious affections, petitions, and resolutions. [The Ways of Mental Prayer, p. 13]
While we are exercising our imagination and intellect in this kind of prayer, that "the important thing is not to think much, but to love much," St. Teresa admonished. Loving God is what transforms us. If we merely consume knowledge through various spiritual, doctrinal, and historical Church readings, rather than doing so prayerfully and lovingly in conversation with God, we run the risk of intellectual and spiritual pride (something we are all subject to, to begin with!).
Now, there are various forms of mental prayer from meditation to the prayer of simplicity, which is active contemplation (although not the higher form of mystical contemplation St. Teresa speaks of in which God "takes over" the soul and its faculties, yet it more aware of God than ever).
St. Teresa of Avila uses what is called the "Four Waters" analogy for the degrees of prayer. She compares the four degrees of prayer to the four ways a garden can be watered.
The four degrees of prayer she writes about in her autobiography are as follows...
It seems to me that the garden may be watered in four ways:
by water taken out of a well, which is very laborious;
or with water raised by means of an engine and buckets, drawn by a windlass—I have drawn it this way sometimes—it is a less troublesome way than the first, and gives more water;
or by a stream or brook, whereby the garden is watered in a much better way—for the soil is more thoroughly saturated, and there is no necessity to water it so often, and the labour of the gardener is much less;
or by showers of rain, when our Lord Himself waters it, without labour on our part—and this way is incomparably better than all the others of which I have spoken. (The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, Chapter 11)
She compares the first degree of prayer for beginners to the laborous task of drawing water up out of a well:
Of those who are beginners in prayer, we may say, that they are those who draw the water up out of the well—a process which, as I have said, is very laborious; for they must be wearied in keeping the senses recollected, and this is a great labour, because the senses have been hitherto accustomed to distractions. It is necessary for beginners to accustom themselves to disregard what they hear or see, and to put it away from them during the time of prayer; they must be alone, and in retirement think over their past life. Though all must do this many times, beginners as well as those more advanced; all, however, must not do so equally, as I shall show hereafter. Beginners at first suffer much, because they are not convinced that they are penitent for their sins; and yet they are, because they are so sincerely resolved on serving God. They must strive to meditate on the life of Christ, and the understanding is wearied thereby. Thus far we can advance of ourselves—that is, by the grace of God—for without that, as every one knows, we never can have one good thought. This is beginning to draw water up out of the well.
...What, then, will he do here who sees that, for many days, he is conscious only of aridity, disgust, dislike, and so great an unwillingness to go to the well for water, that he would give it up altogether, if he did not remember that he has to please and serve the Lord of the garden...
...What, then, once more, will the gardener do now? He must rejoice and take comfort, and consider it as the greatest favour to labour in the garden of so great an Emperor; and as he knows that he is pleasing Him in the matter—and his purpose must not be to please himself, but Him—let him praise Him greatly for the trust He has in him—for He sees that, without any recompense, he is taking so much care of that which has been confided to him; let him help Him to carry the Cross, and let him think how He carried it all His life long; let him not seek his kingdom here, nor ever intermit his prayer; and so let him resolve, if this aridity should last even his whole life long, never to let Christ fall down beneath the Cross.
I will stop at this point in sharing the degrees of prayer because it is precisely here where many many souls either stop or settle. As many saints have pointed out, in this very beginning of a prayer life the temptation is to give up because of the labor of it all. Vocal and meditative prayer is still just the beginning of our prayer life and our life in Christ. Christ desires Divine intimacy with you! Our growing union with Him is literally a foretaste of heaven! We can experience the joys and love of heaven not only in heaven, but even here on earth too! The key is to do this for the sake of God, not for the sake of ourselves. St. Francis de Sales in his Introduction to the Devout Life helps us understand...
Moreover, we must from time to time make acts of renunciation of such feelings of sweetness, tenderness, and consolation, withdrawing our hearts from them and protesting that, although we accept them humbly and love them, because God sends them to us, and because they stir us up to love him, yet we seek not them, but God and his holy love: not the consolation but the Consoler....
Our desire for God must be purified of selfish motives of always wanting to experience the Resurrection of the spiritual life but not the Crucifixion. A Christian lives the entire Paschal mystery within themselves in union with Christ; that is, they live the Passion, death and resurrection of Christ. They experience suffering and trials, yet at the same time all the more do they experience heavenly joy and peace. It's something baffling to the human understanding and St. Teresa of Avila even admitted to being confounded by this paradox yet knew it to be true for she experienced it within herself. Ok I'm diverting....forgive me!
Many souls stop their prayer life here at the beginnings because...
1. They think this is the heights of prayer due to insufficient knowledge of the depths of spiritual life
2. They get discouraged at fighting against distractions or their own habitual sins
3. They constantly experience what is called spiritual aridity or desolution...where prayer loses its "sweet" taste and ease and becomes difficult and non-desirous
4. They do not desire perfection and remain attached to even the slightest venial sins
YES - prayer is difficult, it is arduous, it is not easy. It is contrary to our human nature which seeks to please itself and prefers only that which is easy and comfortable. Prayer often in the beginning is more of a disicipline than anything else because we have to learn to subject our feelings and emotions to our reason and will. If we wait until we feel like praying, we probably never will or hardly will.
"If you wish to pray better, pray more," Blessed Mother Teresa said. But the beautiful thing about this disicpline of consistent daily mental prayer is that the more we pray, the more we will desire to pray. This is because one of the effects of daily mental prayer is that is orders our affections away from created things towards God.
"Sin has drawn us aside [from our end goal of God] and turned us towards the creature. The remedy is mental prayer, which detaches us from obstacles, and unites us to what helps us." [The Ways of Mental Prayer]
According to Rev. Dom Vitalis Lehodey in The Ways of Mental Prayer, mental prayer detaches us from four things:
1. Mental prayer detaches us from sin. Our desires to commit even the slightest sins will go away; we will desire to only please God and avoid all things which could lead us to sin. We will no longer desire to mock people, speak gossip of others, use foul language, watch shows or movies that are impure, listen to such impure music, etc... These things will provide us with no pleasure anymore. God is molding our hearts and changing them through prayer. Praise be to God!
2. Mental prayer detaches us from perishable goods such as riches, honors, bodily comforts, of all things which it is so easy to make ill use of. It shows us the vainity of all that cannot satisfy a heart longing after God and the frailty of all that passes away, and reveals to us the anxieties and dangers which false goods bring us and their utter worthlessness in what lasts forever.
3. Mental prayer detaches us from the world. It teaches us to make no account of the world's promises or threats, of its esteem or contempt for the world can neither bring us lasting happiness or make us virtuous. A heart which finds itself desiring earthly things more than directing its thoughts and heart upon God throughout the day is a heart that still belongs to the world, not God. Its intentions to serve God may be sincere, but again, the passions and affections must be ordered toward God; this is done through persevering mental prayer.
4. Above all, it detaches us from ourselves. It teaches us to substitute the soul's delights for bodily pleasures and to trample upon the sin of pride and sensuality. "If there is any fact evident in the history of Christian life, it is that the love of mortification keeps pace in a soul with the love of mental prayer."
The detachment to all these things leads us to unite with God and Him alone, in Whom our entire happiness and salvation is found. Mental prayer also illuminates our understanding of all things, which has otherwise been darkened due to sin. Our world cannot make sense of a virtous, prayerful, sacrificial life because it is entrenched in darkness and has been stupified by sin.
In the end, prayer is a matter of persevering. We must never give it up, despite however unworthy we may feel of it and despite however distracted we may become during it. Just peacefully move your heart and mind back upon God.
One who sets out and resolves to live out their Christian life seriously must have two things:
1. A desire for God and perfection ("Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," as Christ commands). This means being perfect in love - in virtue, like our Lord, and for His glory, not our own.
2. A willingness to spend time daily with God in prayer. St. Teresa of Avila says in regards to "closing" this door of prayer by not praying or not praying enough, "Once this door is closed, I do not see how He will bestow His favors for though He may wish to take His delight in the soul and give the soul delight, there is no way for Him to do so since He must have it alone and pure and desirous of receiving His favors." Advancement in the spiritual life and in union with God is impossible without mental prayer.
Souls who are serious about growing in union with God should seek out a spiritual director. "Only the fool guides himself," said St. Bernard. A spiritual director is not a therapist - he's not someone there to help listen to your problems and give advice although this is what he does in some respects if you ask; a spiritual director - who should be a learned and holy priest - is there to discern and guide your soul and help you see more clearly what the Lord is doing in it. In the spiritual life, there are many deceptions that Satan can employ - even to the holiest of people - because the Father of Lies is so very very sublte and clever! By submitted ourselves to direction, we can safeguard against these things and be more assured that we are walking the path of perfection. We can also be better assured that we are not deceiving ourselves - for the better or for the worse.
Souls who are serious about growing in union with God must also make a serious endeavor to set aside time for spiritual reading on a daily basis (on top of the obvious, which is prayer). I wrote about this in a previous post and shared some titles and podcasts for your spiritual growth. Idle time is a killer of prayer and spiritual reading. We spend idle time watching tv a lot, browsing social media feeds, clicking around aimlessly on the internet, etc... We will rest when we are dead! Right now is the time to constantly labor for our salvation and the salvation of souls. Every second should be used toward this end. Ide time is easy for us to fall into because time spent idly is easy and comfortable for us and sometimes just outright lazy. It's harder to discipline ourselves to go pray or pick up a spiritual book. But the more we practice that discipline, the more we will desire higher and heavenly things.
Get moving!
The Lord desires intimate union with you! Divine intimacy with the Creator of Heaven and earth! He calls you to the heights of prayer! Sainthood is for everyone! You - yes you! If you are afraid, if you are discouraged about this call, stop looking to yourself and keep your eyes fixed upon Christ, through Whom all things are possible!
St. Thomas Aquinas' sister once asked him, "How do I become a saint?" and his response was, "Will it!" Yes, desire union with God; desire perfection and sanctity and the Lord will take care of the rest if you cooperate with those graces He sends your way!
I will be praying for you, please pray for me. :)
