THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

Existence Can Be Painful – Prayer Helps

By Brother Joseph of Mary,

When existence lacks participation in God pain is present. Hell is an example of this. Participation in God will alleviate this pain. Heaven is an example of this. Prayer bridges the gap between Man and God. Our continued discussion on prayer will attempt to illuminate what prayer is, how to use prayer and the changes prayer can initiate in our existence.

“What is prayer? It is commonly held to be a conversation. In a conversation

there are always an ‘I’ and a ‘thou’ or ‘you’. In this case the ‘Thou’ is with a

capital ‘T’. If at first the ‘I’ seems to be the most important element in prayer,

prayer teaches that the situation is actually different. The ‘Thou’ is more

important, because our prayer begins with God. In his Letter to the Romans,

Saint Paul teaches precisely this. According to the apostle, prayer reflects

all created reality; it is in a certain sense a cosmic function. …One can and

must pray in many different ways, …Man achieves the fullness of prayer not

when he expresses himself, but when he lets God be most fully present in

prayer. The history of mystical prayer is the East and West attests to

this: Saint Francis, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross, Saint

Ignatius of Loyola, and, in the East, for example: Saint Serafim of Sarov

and many others.” Crossing the Threshold of Hope, His Holiness John Paul II,

pp. 16-18.

To understand mystical prayer and what St. John of the Cross teaches on this fullness of prayer, we necessarily have learned that God exists in a twofold manner, in His essence and operations. Man also exists this way. This is important to understanding prayer. When prayer is studied it will become apparent that prayer is a unique human operation that can precipitate a change in our essence. Through prayer we can become divinized by participation, we become united to God. This union will not be perfect if we attempt to unite with God’s operations instead of His essence. God’s operation in the soul consists of knowledge/understanding in the intellect and satisfaction in the will. Why do we need to become aware of the fact that understanding in the intellect and satisfaction in the will are not God? This is so because the intellect and will represent seats of passions or desires (appetites). Sensitive passions exist in the will and intellectual passions exist in the intellect. In God these are controlled and ordered. In us they are not. For instance, God never cheats, lies or steals. He does not hoard gold, food or land. Man does hoard things and this act is called greed. Since our appetites/passions are disordered, as God approaches us in prayer/contemplation, we are inclined to express our disordered nature in our response to God’s approach. We will mistake something that is not God (his operations) for God. This misdirected effort will impair our ability to have union with God. We do not want to mistake the gifts of God for God. Lovers want to fall in love with each other not with the gifts they exchange.

We begin with the Eucharist. We see that God can and will effect a transformation in created matter, in this instance wheat to bread, bread to divinity. In prayer, the soul will be transformed through contemplative prayer to a participation in the Divine Trinity. God then is enabled to disperse His Goodness throughout creation. The Church’s teaching office and sanctifying office exist to serve this purpose. That is to bring about the soul’s transforming union with God.

Here we have learned that Prayer is a human operation that can lead to union with God. There are different ways to pray. Man achieves the fullness of prayer when God becomes most fully present in prayer. Mystical prayer exists. Next time we will more fully discuss this “Mystical Prayer” and the parts of the soul involved in it.