All I need to do is to apply that teaching in my own life, in all the different spaces – in the Church, in the home, in the street, in the car, on my own, among a crowd…
When I was a little girl, I used to think that praying “looked” a certain way. It was serious and quiet and even silent.
I imagined prayer in the Church in the dark. I imagined eyes closed.
And this was how I imagined it was to pray.
Now, as I have gotten older, I realise that these little girl ideas about prayer were completely misguided. After all prayer is a conversation with God. It consists of silence and sound. Without the sound there is no communication on my part and without the sound there is no communication on the part of God.
And this is significant because it means that prayer is part of a relationship – just as God in the Holy Trinity is in a relationship with Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And just as I misunderstood prayer, others have misunderstood various things. In fact, the Pharisees misunderstood God Himself…
“To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’ For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine; and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of man has come eating and drinking; and you say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” (Luke 7:31-35).
And it was probably because they were like me as a child, where I had a picture of what prayer looked like. And when it looked different from that I just could not compute it. Instead, it was something that seemed somehow false. So, prayer was not a song in a car on a long drive. It was not a burst of frustration expressed with a difficult problem. It was not a quiet cry of grief where nobody else could see.
I held a mental picture in my head of what prayer looked like. And instead, today, I pray for the Grace to ask my Master to TEACH me to pray. For once He was asked, and He prayed the Our Father. And in that prayer, He worshipped God in Heaven, He proclaimed the Kingdom and then He accepted the Will of the Father. He asked for God to provide for Him and asked for forgiveness as He forgave others.
And when I think about that prayer there is really nothing else that needs to be said. You see, the thing that I need to learn was taught to me two thousand years ago. And all I need to do is to apply that teaching in my own life, in all the different spaces – in the Church, in the home, in the street, in the car, on my own, among a crowd…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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