BECOMING PRAY-ERS

[Photo: Taken at Don Bosco Batulao]

I think I was doing my annual spiritual retreat when I took a liking at this “sculpture” (I don’t know how you would call it.). It reminded me about what I should be during the retreat. I should become a pray-er. (I came across this word for the first time in a book written by Fr. Thomas Green, SJ.)

Obviously a pray-er refers to a person who is doing the activity of praying just as a player is one who is playing. But a pray-er does a whole lot more than carrying out an activity called praying.

I think that a pray-er is one who has taken prayer as one of his life’s major preoccupation. It’s like an “occupation” or better yet, a “profession”. Think of a lawyer or a painter (artist). For them law or painting has become their way of life, indeed, their life. In the same way for the pray-er, prayer has become his life. He is at home with it just as fish is at home in water.

As lawyer or painter practices his profession, in time he becomes an expert. He becomes a professional.  The pray-er, too, becomes an expert. He becomes good at praying. Practice means at least three things. 

Firstly, practice means exercising one’s profession. Simply put, the lawyer lawyers, the painter paints, and the pray-er prays. You do not learn to swim by reading. You learn by doing. For the pray-er, it means dedicating a specific time during the 24-hour period. This includes how long the prayer time would be.

Secondly, this practice must be constant. You do not learn to pray when your prayer is an on and off activity. They say that it takes ten years to be a concert pianist. And even when you become a concert pianist, the practice goes on. Paderewski was to have said: “If I don't practice for one day, I know it; if I don't practice for two days, my friends know it. If I don't practice for three days, EVERYBODY knows it.”

Thirdly, you do not only work hard (constancy) but you have to work smart (intelligently). Aspiring concert pianists do not just pound away at the keyboard. They follow a method. An author stated: “Practice methods can make the difference between a lifetime of futility, and a concert pianist in less than 10 years for young, dedicated students.” Beginning pray-ers may find the lectio divina method helpful. (I use the word “method” loosely.). J. Murray Elwood proposes the “Christ in my eyes; Christ in my heart; and Christ in my hands” method. Centering Prayer is another popular method. Pennington and Keating are some of the well-known teachers of this method.

Let us, however, keep in mind that praying is not like “lawyering” and painting. It is not just like any human activity. First and foremost it is a religious activity. And when you enter the sphere of the divine, things are different. In science, for example, in the realm of super cold temperatures, materials that are normally insulators become superconductors. Prayer is not just about human effort (ascetical aspect). It is above all, the action of God (mystical aspect). And it is the mystical aspect that makes or breaks the growth of a pray-er. For this a teacher that I recommend is St. Teresa of Avila. As an introduction, I recommend the nine grades of prayer (http://catholic-church.org/grace/growing/9grades/9grades.htm) and The Four Stages according to St. Teresa of Avila  (http://dave-notabene.blogspot.com/2010/06/four-stages-according-to-saint-teresa.html).

Why am I speaking about prayer at this time? The Lenten season according to Catholic practice is about prayer, penance (sacrifice) and almsgiving (charity). Perhaps instead of using the Holy Week as a time for fun and relaxation, let us use it to learn to pray and to pray. (I have no problem with fun and relaxation. What I object to is the timing. Not during Holy Week, please.)