Question: Mrs. Josphine Mathew 

Please help me to understand what prayer is all about?

Answer: Dominic Veliath SDB

The question that you have posed viz., the “how” of prayer, is not an easy one to answer. The challenges in this regard come from different fronts. On the one hand, there are those who pose the question as to why we should pray at all. After all so they say God already knows what we need since He created us; another instance often quoted in this regard is the meaningfulness of Litanic prayers where we repeat a petition: e.g. “pray for us,” over and over again! Hence the basic “why” of prayer.

Going back to Sacred Scripture, however, one finds that, in the Old Testament, especially the book of Psalms, there is no specific word for “prayer.” The psalmist uses phrases like: “I rejoiced in the Lord;” or “I cried to the Lord in my distress” etc. In other words, Prayer is not envisaged as one activity among other activities such as eating, studying, and “praying.” Prayer is rather understood as an underlying attitude. In other words, whatever we do, we are asked to do it prayerfully. The Latin word for prayer is Pietas (piety), which in effect means: “dealing with God as our Father.” Prayers are therefore called “exercises of piety;” “practices of piety.”

Furthermore for the Bible it would seem that there is no special place to which God is restricted. In Exodus 3:4-15, we read that God encounters Moses when he was grazing his father-in-law’s sheep; in the book of Judges 6:11-18, God encounters Gideon when he was threshing wheat.

Moreover, there are no special words which have to be used. In Genesis 18:22–33, we read of Abraham bargaining with God for the salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah. He brings down the number of just men required from 50 to 10. Really a delightful episode almost as if one were in the market place, haggling over the price of onions or potatoes. Then we have the prayer wherein Jeremiah, as it were, grumbles with God: “Cursed be the day on which I was born” (Jeremiah 20:7–18).

But what actually is prayer? In the passage mentioned above, Exodus 3:4ff. describes the encounter between God and Moses, in the course of which God reveals His name to Moses (Exodus 3:13ff. I AM WHO I AM).

Unfortunately we have lost the sense of the uniqueness of the name. Nowadays only brand names seem to matter, e.g. Coca Cola, Cadburys, etc. But it is to be remembered that a person’s name is about the most personal thing that a person has. In a certain sense, I had my name! During the Second World War, one of the most degrading things that Adolf Hitler did in the concentration camps was to remove the names of the prisoners and replace it with a number. It is interesting to note that in traditional Italian culture,only close friends are allowed to use the name “dare il Tu” (as they put it); for the crowd at large, their relationship is expressed in the formal address “Lei.”

With the revelation of His name God enters into a personal relationship with Moses and evokes the same. With that, Moses is transformed. He goes back to Egypt to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. Hence Prayer has been called an encounter with God where we discover God’s Name for us.

Where do we encounter God? At times we tend to distinguish between the sacred and profane; realms where God is found and on the other hand, realms where God is not found. An example of the former would be Formal prayer, meditating on the Word of God, approaching the sacraments etc. Examples of the latter, instead, would be work, recreation etc. But according to the biblical understanding, all activity involves an encounter with God. As a matter of fact, the only place where we do not encounter God is when we reject “God – and that precisely is sin.

How can we integrate prayer and work?

There is an insightful incident narrated about the Buddha. The disciples one day came to him and put this question to him: Master is it more important to pray or is it more important to work? With his left hand, the Buddha held the begging bowl; with the right hand, he pointed to the ground. In other words: both Prayer and Work are important.

Then why do we have formal prayer?

We have formal prayer, not because God needs our prayer, but because we need prayer, to open ourselves to God’s will in our regard. Prayer is not for God’s sake, but for our sake. In the words of the social activist Daniel Berrigan: “The one, who prays, meditates and withdraws, is a person who has his bearings.”

In this manner, we articulate in our lives a rhythm of prayer and work. We bring our work to prayer and draw strength from our prayer for work. In the process we ourselves change. At the beginning, our initial attitude tends to be like: “I have come to do a lot of good, Lord.” “You are lucky to have a person like me.” But then after years of service, in course of time the perspective changes to: “I have come to do your will.” “May Your will be realized in me.”

The wonder of our Christian understanding of prayer is that it is the Trinitarian God Himself who is the exemplar of Christian prayer: the Father is God-for-us; the Son Incarnate is God-with-us; and the Holy Spirit is God-in-us.

To conclude these reflections on prayer, Nikos Kazantzakis speaks of three types of persons and three types of prayers: There is the frightened man who prays: “Lord I am a bow in your hands, don’t draw me or I will break.” There is then the resigned man who prays: “Lord I am a bow in your hands, draw me and I will break. Who cares if I break?” And finally there is the prophet who prays: “Lord I am a bow in your hands. Draw me and use me or else I will be slack and useless.” Remember we are all called to be prophets!