The great French writer, Victor Hugo, although sometimes doubtful about religion itself, still understood that a prayer had wings and knew more about itself and its purpose than the pray-er ever could.
Saint Paul, too, knew that often times we are wordless and clueless about how to put our unspoken yearnings to God. He wrote in Romans 8:26-27, We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
There have been times in my life when I have been lost for words, when I have groaned because of inarticulacy. I have relied then on God to read my heart, rather than my chatterbox mind, overwhelmed as it is by too much external noise. I am a poor supplicant but trust that God sees through the inchoate mess and makes sense of what I cannot express. My prayerful intention, the pause and stillness, is enough when it needs to be. It points the way for my intercessions, when I am just about to drop my spiritual bundle.
God is with us at every moment of our lives and knows us in every moment; in our triumphs and trials, in our wins and woes, in the warp and weft of the days and weeks, in the tapestry of the years. He knows us in our prayers; the prayers that soar and those that struggle in an aching silence, still-born.
God happily hears prayers that are a little scratchy or inelegant. Beautiful words are simply empty rhetoric if they are not formed by a heart engaged and purposeful. God knows when we have the right prompts, that sincerity and change are behind what we seek. John Bunyan wrote that in prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Sometimes, a heartfelt Thank God can be a short and simple prayer of gratitude. When you can’t put your prayers into words, God hears your heart.
The more we pray, the more receptive we are to the movement of the Spirit and the heartbeat of the world around us. We bring our tensions and concerns to prayer and they somehow become less intrusive. We have sought mercy and forgiveness in our contrition. We have let prayer become the language of love for God, allowing its ineffability to help our own spiritual translation. Sometimes in prayer, we pour our hearts out to God because we believe he knows how to heal them. We blurt and bless, confide and confess and the Spirit intercedes and makes our very being known.
My prayer life is fairly simple, when it is working well. I thank God for the new day every day and try to shape it towards some sort of goodness and gladness. Sometimes, when I am almost talking to myself I am also talking to God, sifting things out, asking for help, trusting that I can do better, wondering what the plan is… and leaving it up to God. Sometimes, poetry or beautiful words, prod my own reflection as I sit in my grandmother’s chair and watch evening settle over the suburbs. On other occasions, I will go to the tried and true, a Hail Mary or an Our Father because these words are etched into my being, archived in my heart.
Saint Peter Julian Eymard wrote that in prayer we must go to Jesus without too much fuss. We do not need more drama or duty in our lives, just the time and space for a quiet word. Our prayers find their mark, even when our aim is not so straight. The Spirit guides them to the God who hears our every word and knows our every breath.
Joan Chittister, the Benedictine nun who has just turned ninety and still has so much wisdom to impart said in an interview in 1989: Somebody once said that the function of prayer is not to comfort the afflicted but to afflict the comfortable. I go to prayer to be called to something better in myself. I pray to know the will of God, and that will always push me a little further up the road.
A little further up the road. I think that is one of the most essential reasons for prayer. It is not for piety or pleading or the long faces of sanctimony or an easy uncontested conversation. It is about moving ahead in the Spirit, examining one’s conscience to see and avoid the potholes in the road that can derail our spiritual journey. It is about pushing ahead to find that something better in ourselves.
The beauty of prayer is that it frees us to express ourselves intimately and authentically. Even the occasional awkward silence is greeted knowingly by God. Prayer liberates us to pray as we are – and as we could be.
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Fr Frank O'Loughlin says:
Ann, such beautiful and helpfulk words. Thank you. Frank O’Loughlin