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by Randy Roche, SJ
Below is a title and brief description of each essay. To read the essay, click on the title.
The Who of Prayer - We are enabled to be the People of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
A Name in Prayer - We know what is a prayer and what is not.
One Kind of Prayer - Many believers have had more than one “heart to heart” with God.
In No Time - God’s communication with us is about love.
On the Run - How long does it take to say “Lord, help me with this?”
What if? - God, help us to ask the right questions!
Grace and Gratitude - We might recognize how precious life is for us, and give thanks for this very personal gift.
Why Ask? - When we ask as sisters and brothers of Jesus, we know that we will receive...
Music - Music and songs give us help to do what we are sent into the world to accomplish.
There’s a big difference between talking about someone and talking with someone.
When we pray, we are in contact with someone. We are talking with God, not talking to ourselves about God. Our experience may vary widely. In every kind of prayer, it is God who invites and really initiates and makes possible the connection between us who are created, and our Creator.
Some people find a closer sense of God when they pray to Jesus. They have a connection with someone like themselves, yet truly God. Often it becomes easy to carry on a kind of conversation. The Father sent Jesus into the world to save the world. Jesus did this, through his obedience even through death on the cross. Having accomplished his mission, the risen Jesus returned to the Father, yet remained with us. We can converse with him.
At other times, it may be more fitting to pray not so much with words, as with feelings, or with some expression inside that cannot be put into words. This might be prayer “in the Spirit,” when we quietly accept the reality that the Holy Spirit can and does pray within us, including those times when we cannot find the means to express ourselves. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and loves us enough to make possible such wordless communion with God.
We believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How personal God is! The Spirit of God, residing within us, acts like a loving Person, not a “thing.” Who but Love would draw us, but never force us, to enter into a sense of gratitude to God for so many gifts received, or sorrow for the ways we have misused our gifts. This leads to more gratitude and to a natural opportunity to make needed changes in our lives. The Holy Spirit of love between the Father and the Son is this wonderful Someone who reminds us of all that Jesus said and did.
We who are the People of God, the Church, the disciples of Jesus, and the Body of Christ are enabled to be such by the power of the Holy Spirit.
“Dear Lord!” That’s what I heard my mother say, as I was lying in the back of the car. The next instant there was a huge crash, as we were hit broadside by a big truck that had simply turned into us. (The car was trashed; we were O.K.)
I knew then that what I had heard was a prayer, not an exclamation. I know the difference, both in my own spontaneous words that come out at surprises, and in the common expressions of others that I hear. We all know the words. Even if we never “take the name of the Lord in vain” we know what is a prayer and what is not.
To immediately call upon God in a tough, scary, unpleasant, or dangerous situation, or in one that is exciting, transcendent, or beyond our capacity to understand, is certainly a wise thing to do. Why do we not always do that? When we are “on the spot,” words that we have been using frequently will come out of our mouths without first passing through our minds. We may hear those expressions repeated around us, and perhaps within us. We need to hear ourselves addressing God – then it will become very natural for us to use a name for God and to speak to God when startling events catch our attention.
We can get used to talking to God, using names that become as familiar to us as the names we use for the other people who are important in our lives. The names we use for God might be the same as those we often hear used as exclamations. But if the names for God have become real names for Someone we love, they will come to us at times of need. Even if our first words are of shock or surprise, at least our next words – inside or spoken out loud – will be honest communication with God.
When people talk to one another about what is deeply important, it matters not who speaks first or who talks longest. A “heart-to-heart” talk is not so much about emotions or feelings as it is about honesty and care. Integrity and real understanding are of much more concern than proper grammar and vocabulary. Such conversations can be intense, but are always worth while. When we come to an appreciation of one another’s perspectives, we often recognize the "rightness” of what has taken place, with an accompanying sense of peace.
There are times when each of us either senses a need for a “heart to heart” with God, or God indicates the need, by catching our attention in a manner that is hard to miss. At such times, we intuitively understand that we want to be alone, or at least private, even if we are out in public. It is often possible to sit in a place where we can expect not to be interrupted; perhaps we close our eyes so as to become free from irrelevant contacts.
Is anything else needed? Certainly not anything material. We come as we are, and we talk about, think about, pray about what is important to us (God and each of us.) We do not need to be concerned with “the right way” to say things, since God knows what we mean better than we. Besides, God often communicates with few words but much of acceptance. There is nothing that God does not understand. He has “been there” in the person of Jesus Christ.
Such experiences are common, in the sense that very many believers have had more than one “heart to heart” with God. These are also privileged times, for which we thank God. We are always changed by such encounters. We certainly come to know God better from these conversations, and by our openness, we "let" God know us more and love us more. It is totally “win-win.”
Instant communication can bring people together. When someone can be reached by cellular phone, that is very handy. Instant communication can also be less than helpful. Have we had enough of the repeated news stories about the same things? With the powerful, almost constant availability of contact, we need to make some choices as to whom we want to hear, and when.
Jesus has greater capacity for instant communication than any of our most modern electronic media can provide. His immediate presence with us is more real than the most hi-tech images that are available.
God can call us at any time, be present anywhere. Yet we still need to make choices about availability. We can turn off pagers and cell phones, iPods and other communication devices the better to be available to God. We decide when we do not want to be reached by other people; when we let the phone ring, or turn off the TV or radio. Communication is for the purposes of enhancing life. Life is not for purposes of communication.
God has a distinct advantage when calling us: God knows exactly when it is a “good time to call.” It may not always seem convenient to us. I have been awakened at night, and sensed that “we need to talk.” Others report that they had made up their minds to do something, and then had a sudden urge to check things out with God before acting. God calls. Yet we always retain our capacity to choose. We can “turn off” to God whenever we wish. We might choose to keep God from communicating with us by keeping up such a constant stream of other contacts, that our “line is always busy. “
God’s communication with us is about love, the very thing we most need in life. We can make an occasional deliberate choice to separate ourselves from all means of contact with others, and wait for a call from God. The message ultimately enters us: “Peace be with you!”
It is wonderful to have extended time to pray and reflect. Most people of faith and good will rarely have the opportunity for a retreat or a day of prayer. Lengthy periods of prayer are special exceptions for those whose lives go on, moment after moment, and who must find God in the realities of daily life.
The spirituality of busy and active people is real and holy, precious in God’s eyes. God is present in all and through all. That “all” encompasses not only physical things or persons, but the ordinary events of our lives.
How long does it take to say “Lord, help me with this?” How trusting are we when we wordlessly look to God as we acknowledge that we are pushed to our limits right now?
When we turn to one another with many of the things going on in our lives, it is not with the expectation that they will make it all better, but that their understanding and compassion will enable us to deal with whatever is of concern to us. When we take moments during the day to share with God our concerns, we do not expect everything in our circumstances to change, but we can realistically expect that we ourselves might be changed for the better. One personal example: With my head stopped up from a heavy cold, I could only breathe through my mouth, and was experiencing some acute discomfort. In bringing my situation to God, I was not looking for an alternative to cold medications, but for the grace to live well in the present moment. This I was granted: a sense of peaceful acceptance of the reality that I could not change. This kind of experience is quite common among us.
Spirituality “on the run” has its origins not in some book about it, but in God who inspires. The inventor of time and the creator of human persons in his own image desires to be with us in our lived realities, all the time, each day. God is not satisfied with encountering us only in our celebrations of Eucharist and retreats.
“I am with you always…”
“What if?” is very different from “what?” Two letters, one small word, can get us so far from our experience of God’s practical goodness that it is like using “if” as a tool to dig a deep, dark hole. We gain nothing from the anxious kind of thinking that looks at many possible (not probable) outcomes or scenarios, most of which include an element of pain, suffering, failure, or frustration.
The focus on the “what?” that expects some kind of indication or direction from God, includes the possibility of pain, but it looks to the good to be achieved by our decision, trusting that Love wants the best for us. Running through the mental and imaginative labor of “what if?” generally limits our thinking to those things over which we do not have complete control, which leads to feelings of fear and anxiety.
An example: “What if I don’t get approved?” The imagination can either picture some negative consequences, and evoke a great variety of negative feelings, turning the present moment into one of internal suffering, while the eventual reality might turn out to be happy and pleasant. We have an alternative. For example: “What should I do?” also uses the imagination in looking for options, and might require some focused effort, but makes the present moment worthwhile.
All of the thinking and asking questions of ourselves takes place inside us. Yet the consequences become visible to those around us, in our negative or positive attitude, and by the looks on our faces. We reveal confusion and uncertainty or we manifest our intention to dealing with the realities that affect us.
God, help us to ask the right questions!
Many people pray before eating, especially at an evening meal. We might want to express some gratitude to God for having food that we need, food that we did not grow or produce ourselves. We give thanks to God for every-day things if we see them as gifts.
Health is as important as food. We do not have in our religious culture a daily prayer of thanks for the gift of life, unless, in the Lord’s Prayer, “daily bread” is understood to mean not just food, but the life that food sustains.
If we do not often experience the lack of sufficient food, which might lead to deeper appreciation, almost all of us do have short-term or long-term experiences with aches or pains, allergies or ailments, colds or cancers. We can move from our concerns about the limitations we have to thanking God for the life and health that we do have. At almost the same time that we pray for better health (if that is a concern) we might also recognize how precious life is for us, and give thanks for this very personal gift.
It is not that God needs our gratitude when we become aware of sickness or other limitations. Yet, it helps us participate more fully in physical, mental and emotional healing when we think about and give thanks for what we do have. This attitude is what carries over to life that does not end.
Since God already knows what is going to happen, and since Jesus taught us to pray “... Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven...” why do we ask God to help us with our particular concerns?
Our answers to this vary with our experiences. Some of us have received such immediate responses to simple requests for things that we are convinced: God wants us to be like children, and ask for what we need. Sometimes we do so directly, sometimes we ask through our friends who are with God: Our Lady, saints, angels, perhaps a relative or other person we believe is now with God.
Some of us have experiences of “no answer” even after making many heartfelt requests for help. Rather than quit, we may find that our requests deepen, and we ask for trust, or whatever it is that God knows we need, though we ourselves did not yet know it.
There are plenty of passages in the New Testament that teach us to ask, as well as to praise and thank God. Jesus is described as asking the Father, as well as giving thanks. The Church, the present disciples of Jesus, have a consistent strong tradition of asking God about any least need, and doing so with trust.
We do not have a “right" to anything. But when we ask as sisters and brothers of Jesus, we know we will receive something – something good.
Even people who do not sing will sometimes find a song from Mass or a Worship Service “running around in their heads.” This is not only normal, but can be a moment of grace. There is nothing human that is outside God’s ways of drawing us more deeply into a personal relationship, that in turn sends us into the world of people, work, play, suffering and joy.
Songs we use for worship or prayer often contain expressions that match present circumstances with our faith. The songs were composed by people like ourselves. All of us need encouragement and support for the challenges we encounter day by day. It is common for us to have a song with us when we leave a Liturgy, or shortly afterwards. That seldom surprises us. What seems a little more like a small action on God’s part is when we are completely in another space, occupied with whatever has our attention and focus, and a bit of a song “just pops into our heads,” and happens to be of help.
Whether or not we have these musical experiences, all of us have had God come into our lives in ways that were completely spontaneous, involving no thought or request for assistance on our part. It is like when a friend or family member, a classmate or co-worker sees how things are going with us, and spontaneously says exactly what we need to hear at the moment. God makes contact with us when we ask or when we decide to pray. God also "walks in" to any heart that is open to grace and inspiration. These “visits” may be musical, or peace-full, or perhaps thought-full. They always give us help to do what we are sent into the world to accomplish: some variation of loving God and our neighbor.
Next time a song appears, it might be a messenger of God, within us.
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This page last updated on July 07, 2007