An Intimate Sharing

What is prayer to you? When you think of prayer, one may think of the Rosary, the Mass, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, or a whole host of other devotions that we Catholics love and cherish. Many think prayer is boring repetition that has no place or meaning in their lives. Still others think that they don’t have time to pray, or they can’t pray because they don’t have a Breviary with four different color ribbons. However, I would like you the reader to think of prayer in a different way.

Saint Theresa of Avila, a nun born in the 16th century, lived in an extremely tumultuous time (much like our own). Just two years after she was born, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation and shook Christendom to its core. Roughly 20 years before she was born, Christopher Columbus visited the New World and colonization began. However, despite all the turmoil around her, she still found interior peace and rose to the heights of prayer and sanctity. She once said: “For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything.” These are striking words. Savor them for a minute or two or ten. Prayer is meant to be an “intimate sharing.” Do you find yourself sharing anything and everything with the Lord that loves you or the Father that made you to be his forever? The important, life-altering things? The seemingly mundane things? How much you don’t want to do homework tonight? The pain, brokenness, or shame you hold in your heart? The pain of feeling that you don’t belong, fit in, or a feeling like a mistake?  In our prayer lives, do we resist the temptation to treat Jesus as an idea, rather than a person (with a mother that cherishes you) to be loved? Do you spend time alone with him? Do you let him lovingly eye you? Do you let him, dare I say, adore and dote on you? You can only be receptive to the love of God if you let yourself be loved and available. I do not mean to be accusatory in any way, I only wish to ask questions for us all to reflect on.

I do not mean to devalue or denigrate the prayers I mentioned in the first paragraph in any way. When prayed, these prayers provide a great opportunity for meditation, and I encourage all to pray these prayers and meditate while praying. But I wish to write to call those to greater divine intimacy so we can love those God and those around us more and better. Even if we are not in a convent or friary, we can still find the time to mentally pray. Why not close your eyes, open your heart, and be intimate with the Lord in prayer on the bus to and from Newton? Why not gaze on the face of Christ on the line for food at Mac or Lower? Why not tell him that you wish you did better on your last test? What do you have to lose by sharing everything with him?

Although we may want to be intimate with the Lord quickly and change our lives on a dime, that is not how relationships work. Our Lord wishes to meet us, hear our voice, and strengthen us (by receiving the Bread of Life at Mass) every day, just like he gave Manna every day to the Israelites in the desert. In a sense, our life on Earth is a desert because we lack the beatific vision. However, just because we are in this desert does not mean that we are abandoned. By practicing mental prayer, I hope we can all find the oasis in Christ’s love. 

    For those interested in learning how to pray mentally here is a handy link!