Of Prayer and Preachers

In response to the last post about what it is like to encounter the Lord in prayer, one of our readers asked how we know that this encounter is real and not the product of our imagination. This is an important question. If we cannot be confident on this point, we cannot have confidence in prayer at all. The whole deal could be an elaborate self-deception.  St. Augustine has this very concern at the beginning of his Confessions. He answers his own question by asserting that this is the very reason we need preachers.

Thank you preachers of the Body of Christ, the Church, who love us enough to tell us about the Lord! Whether our parents, our elders, our children, our brothers and sisters, our ministers, our bishops, our priests, our deacons: if we believe what the Church proposes to us through them, then our prayer is not subject to the narrow confines of our own big fat egos or the fickle fantasies of the moment.  How great and precious the mystery of faith!   It gives us real access to God quite apart from what we feel or think.  It is the source of new life even in our weaknesses and inadequacies.  By faith, Christ animates us even when we are overwhelmed by trials, even when we cross the Valley of Death.   It is no small treasure that is offered us when someone discloses to us the hope we have in Christ - the reason for our hope.

It is that world might know these riches of Christ that the Church exists.  And woe unto us who are silent about this Gift for God has suffered that it might be shared and the world desperately suffers without it.  Though the eloquent of speech cannot find words to adequately express what God has done, if we take seriously what has been given us we Christians have no excuse to remain silent.  Before the mystery of what Christ has done for us, we must speak up and make our voices heard even when enemies of spiritual liberty attempt to silence us.

When the Lord Discloses His Presence

What is it like for Christ to disclose his mysterious presence in prayer?  When I am asked this question, my heart goes to the beautiful descriptions we find in the Life of St. Teresa of Avila, the Confessions of St. Augustine, the Life of Antony, the poetry of St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux's Story of a Soul, and Bl. Elisabeth of the Trinity's Prayer to the Trinity. In these works we find such a variety of experiences, it is reasonable to observe that each time Christ manifests his heart, He does so in an intimate, beautiful, and unrepeatable way.

From what they have written, it is reasonable to conclude that He has a plan for each one of us and this plan includes a special disclosure of his heart, a beautiful secret He yearns to share.   By virtue of the dignity in which we are created He respects us too much to force a friendship.  So the Almighty God patiently waits for just the right time, testing our readiness, all the while carefully preparing the perfect circumstances for this encounter.

What is it like?    He sometimes visits us when we are not looking for Him.  But these visits are momentary and usually for the purpose of waking us from our spiritual slumber.  Real prayer is not about a momentary experience, rather it is about dwelling in communion with our divine Friend.  While we are praying, should we be aware that we are praying -- we have not yet begun to pray.  At least, we have not yet begun to pray in friendship love for real friends are more attentive to one another than they are to themselves.  Real prayer is completely absorbed in Him.

He loves to dwell with hearts that are vigilant and persevering in their search for Him.  As the heart questions and seeks, it confronts all kinds of voids and inadequacies.  At the same time, it must ward off distractions.  Sometimes it labors ardently to attend to the One whom it knows is there by faith - but it cannot feel, or think, or intuit, or imagine.  It searches for Him in the Sacred Page - the Holy Bible as entrusted to us in the liturgy and through the wisdom of the saints who have gone before us.  This prayerful heart also carefully examines its whole life in light of the Gospel scrutinizing memories, especially the painful ones, for signs of his presence.  Often everything is just dark because Christ challenges us beyond ourselves into places we are unfamiliar.   All that can be done is to cleave to Him by faith.

This is already a deep contemplation, a real encounter, a profound union with Him, a deep adoration of one's whole being.  We find ourselves constantly dying to our old way of life in this kind of prayer and what once animated us no longer can claim our deepest spiritual center.  A new freedom is being born.  Such mystical union is so much the more fruitful because it is imbued with love, trust, surrender and hope in Him. His very life animates the soul that dies to itself and helps it persevere in its arduous quest through all kinds of trials and difficulties.

The saints also tell us that this darkness is not the final word.  Sometimes there are pledges of love, foretastes of a glory waiting to be revealed.   Indeed, there is fire in the night, flashes which illumine the soul with dazzling splendor.  All at once, the Bridegroom is there, astonishingly present in a manner that could never have been anticipated.  Such is the mysterious presence of the One we recognize in the Breaking of the Bread.  For those who yearn for real friendship with the Lord, a glance of heart piercing love is exchanged and the soul is all at once washed in a breaking wave of exploding jubilation, carried on a deep current of sweet sorrow,  and established in a peaceful stillness from which nothing can disturb it.

To know Him and to be conformed to his death: such knowledge is excelling.  In such knowledge one drinks love to the dregs.  Inebriated with the Holy Spirit, one sees the cosmos through resurrected eyes.  To behold this mystery even in the darkness of faith leaves the heart baptized in tears, the thoughts bowed in adoration, the intuition humbled in holy dismay, the imagination helpless in wonder, the memory forgetting everything but hope.

The Freedom to Pray and Faith in the Public Square

Contrary to the opinion of those who view prayer as something restricted to individual private life, Christian prayer requires a society in which there is enough freedom to live out the mystery it discloses.  Prayer starts in the depths of the heart but it extends to all parts of life.   It brings the life of Christ to all kinds of difficult and perplexing situations so that in the face of despair men and women might find hope. 

A study of Church History in America shows in fact that Catholic Hospitals, Soup Kitchens, Shelters, Colleges and Universities are the fruit of prayer.  Prayerful people, especially thousands of anonymous religious sisters and hard working priests, felt called to express their faith by establishing these institutions of service and education -- so that all these forms of service and education might also be filled with the hope of the Gospel.  Here, in these fruits, we see concrete practical ways prayer provides an irreplaceably vital cultural influence.   Against the manipulative efforts of political and economic forces and ideologues, not only the marginalized and most vulnerable, but the whole of society needs the warrmth of heart, the tender presence and the moral values these fruits of prayer provide.   This is why everyone who is beginning to pray must be concerned when governments attempt to dictate the practice of faith, to manipulate it as a means to some political end.  It is a grave violence to the human person to be compelled to violate one's conscience.  Any attempt to force disobedience to the divine command to which prayers attends in the depths of the heart is a gross abuse of authority.  Cardinal Dolan is aksing for support for the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act to this end:

Catholics and other people of faith and good will are not second class citizens. And it is not for the government to decide which of our ministries is “religious enough” to warrant religious freedom protection.

This is not just about contraception, abortion-causing drugs, and sterilization—although all should recognize the injustices involved in making them part of a universal mandated health care program. It is not about Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. It is about people of faith. This is first and foremost a matter of religious liberty for all. If the government can, for example, tell Catholics that they cannot be in the insurance business today without violating their religious convictions, where does it end? This violates the constitutional limits on our government, and the basic rights upon which our country was founded. 

Much remains to be done. We cannot rest when faced with so grave a threat to the religious liberty for which our parents and grandparents fought. In this moment in history we must work diligently to preserve religious liberty and to remove all threats to the practice of our faith in the public square. This is our heritage as Americans. President Obama should rescind the mandate, or at the very least, provide full and effective measures to protect religious liberty and conscience.

Above all, dear brothers, we rely on the help of the Lord in this important struggle. We all need to act now by contacting our legislators in support of the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which can be done through our action alert on www.usccb.org/conscience.

On Ashes, Penance and Politics

Penance is an expression of love and gratitude to God for the gift of forgiveness.   This is why we put on ashes on Ash Wednesday.  It is a sign of the love that is supposed to be alive in our hearts, a reality which we must live out in our lives, an effort that must really cost us -- or our gratitude will not mean all that much.  

Why do we need to give costly public expression to our effort to live a converted life?  Because we were redeemed at an even greater price by One who willingly bore every humiliation that was necessary that we might not perish.   Those who have contemplated how far God has gone to forgive our trespasses carry deep within themselves a sense of how sin dehumanizes and the conviction that no human power can repair the wounds sin causes.  They know this because the love of God discloses a partial glimpse of the wounds they have caused to the dignity of others by their sins -- and the even deeper wounds they have caused themselves.  This is the political dimension of sin -- it has consequences we do not intend.  It is humble to see this and courageous to dare by divine assistance to address it. 

On this score, we feel the burden of guilt, a burden so great we know no power of our own can relieve it.  Even if in our cleverness we have found ways so that those we have hurt cannot hold us accountable, even if in our own self-defeating genius we will not hold ourselves accountable for our own actions, there is Someone else who will not be deceived and who does demand an account.   The voice of the One who fashioned our inmost being, who knows the truth about who we are and whom we are meant to be - this Voice not only admonishes us, even more He grieves for us.  His cry echoes in the labyrinthine passages of our own heart in crucified anguish.  The real horror of our own lack of humanity, our indifference, our selfishness - this is always before us if we dare to look in the direction of the cry, into the eyes of the One who gazes on us even now in unspeakable love.  And it is only when we dare to look, only when we stand firm and listen, that our healing can begin, that the burden can be lifted.

Because sin has a political consequence, so does forgiveness.  God's healing love reaches past our own failures and the One crucified by love does not fail to embrace those our hostility to Him has most wounded.  Such is the greatness of Divine Mercy, the Ocean of Mercy which torrents forth from the Cross, the inexhaustible wellspring when our trust in Him unleashes.  Broken relationships can be restored by the Blood of the Lamb.   Reconciliation can be achieved because the power of the Cross is greater than the enmity that separates us.  All strife can be overcome by such love and all manner of contention baptized in peace.  

Penance is the attempt to respond to this incalculable love unleashed in the world by our faith.   It is the effort to say "thank you" to the One who has released us from our debt in such a wonderful way.   His love rebuilds what we have destroyed.  We feel the need do make a gesture of gratitude, to assist if even in the smallest of ways in the restitution that God has made possible.  

If we feel the need to pour ourselves out in this effort of gratitude, it is because we realize the great debt God has forgiven and we are pierced to the heart by the extent He has gone to redeem us.   Besides the deeply personal things that are privately known, He has also forgiven us of so many social things -- all kinds of failure to take care of or speak out for the most vulnerable: the unborn, the aged, the dying, the poor, the sick and the hungry.   Surely, our gratitude for the incalculable gift God has lavished on us in his Son extends to the plight of those most in need?  As we pray about how we are to express our thanksgiving for the wondrous gift of forgiveness, He provides new wisdom on how to approach failures in these areas with an invincible hope so that the dignity of those who rely on us might be restored. 

Because forgiveness has political dimensions, so does penance.  This gratitude to the Lord must live in the Church as a visible, concrete, tangible reality.  Penitential love knows it is not enough to love those God gives to us -- they need to feel the warmth of His love through us.   Such penance is cultivated best in the intimate relationships of our family.  Yet no genuine community of faith lasts long without this concrete disclosure of conversion of heart.  It expresses itself in words like "Please forgive me" and in tears and in tenderness and in real changes of behavior.  This loving response to the gift of forgiveness must extend out from our closest relationships and into the broader society in which we live.  When it does, penance makes possible a culture of life and civilization of love.  

If we are hated for our faith, our faith forbids us to continue to hate in return.  More than that, in the face of the exceeding Mercy of the Father, it is not enough for us to wish our enemies well in our imagination or to think good thoughts about our persecutors in our heads.   We must constantly reach out to those who hate us in love even more.  If we must speak the truth those who hate us do not want to hear, we must not be discouraged by their rejection and we must never give up hope in them.  We must extend the hand of friendship to them whenever they permit us to, and above all we must lavish them with kindness at every opportunity -- because this is how we have been loved.  

The man who knows he has been loved uncommonly never runs out of uncommon ways to love those the Lord brings his way, even when those the Lord brings appear in the difficult disguise of a brutal enemy or a hostile political foe.  This is because penance is oriented not to a naive hope.  Instead our gratitude to God directs us to a real solidarity which the Lord himself makes possible even when it seems impossible to achieve, even in the face of the anti-thesis of the hope we have inside.  Such the penance and politics that flow from the Cross: those who stand firm in their faith at this threshold, even if they falter, will not be overcome.    

Heaven in Faith Series Continues - Prayer and the Mystery of Our Faith

Christian prayer has a divine quality to it. It is not just an activity rooted in the exercise of my own psychological powers. This prayer is directed to something beyond all the natural capacities of my soul. It is animated by a deeper more vital principle. Indeed, my faculties are naturally limited by time and space. Christian prayer explodes out of heaven into our lives, imbues our weakened nature with the supernatural, and constantly pierces through this dying cosmos to a new birth, an eternal reality beginning to unfold.


Such prayer is something new. Whole societies can be transformed by it but no politics can contain or manipulate it. The foolishness of this prayer outwits human cleverness. Such prayer is caused by something that stands outside and above the broken cycles, power struggles, agendas and programs of this aging tired old world.

Someone above our nature evokes a new cry of the heart and infuses us with a new recognition in the midst of joy and sorrow. In this Someone we see all that is good, beautiful, noble and true about what it means to be human - only in Him, these things are not subject to death. In Him, these things cannot be compromised. In Him, prayer finds the substance of hope.

Christian prayer is the prayer of the Risen Lord moving in the hearts of those who cling to Him by faith. To pray in Christ is to have Christ pray in us. He does this through the Gift of the Holy Spirit. To live in Christ is to allow the Holy Spirit to animate the whole of our lives so that we live in Christ, the very life of Christ, a life no longer subject to sin and death even in the face of our own failures and weaknesses. It was so that we might receive this gift that He suffered death and raised our humanity with Him into heaven. He yearns for us to live in this new humanity, to believe in it, to cling to it -- not in some future afterlife -- but right now, in the present moment. Prayer accesses this new life, connects us to the Heavenly Man, and opens into the Heart of Christ. What does this love imbued prayer mean practically?

In the face of our new humanity, we must let go of all kinds of dehumanizing fantasies and dreams. Confronted with the Heart of God, we must renounce all kinds of pleasures, comforts, satisfactions and preferences not worthy of the sons and daughters of God. Furthermore, with great trust, we must choose what we do not understand and trust in divine action accomplishing what we cannot imagine. For God is more than what we can grasp and his work surpasses anything we can envision. When it seems most senseless to do so, we must persevere in love for love -- always believing in his love to the point of being consumed by it. Here when it is most painful, we must render ourselves vulnerable before God, as vulnerable as a crucified man.

Guided by loving devotion and soaked with tears, Christian prayer learns the last cry of Jesus from the Cross. If in such prayer one breaths his last -- then by this same prayer, one will be raised up. Behold the humble prayer which gives God space to make all things new: his glory has already begun to shine here and now, in the midst of trials and persecution, hardships and sacrifices -- for we cannot begin to pray except when we realize our weakness, we cannot begin to love except at our own expense.

Elisabeth of the Trinity helps us see this mystery of prayer.  Here are Part 5 and Part 6 of our series.