Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 8
Faitth AMwl
Thursday, March 8, 2001
Finding out what makes
it difficult to pray
All contents copyright©2001 byCNS
FOOD FORTHOUGHT
If prayer means connecting with the heart and
soul of God, then it is a very adult skill that has to
be developed. Mentors are necessary. Even more
important, practice is required.”
ing Scripture reading, while saying
the rosary or when participating in
the Eucharist.
For many, it more than likely
has a lot to do with the difficulty of
slowing down after a busy day, be
ing able to quiet the spirit within
and to create a focus.
To help overcome those obstacles,
it is necessary to spend time prepar
ing for prayer. Although prayer can
take place anywhere, having a par
ticular prayer setting can serve
well.
I try to reserve one particular
chair for Scripture reading and
meditative prayer. If I am going to
read the newspaper or a novel,
that takes place in a different
chair.
Next to the prayer seat, I have
positioned a small end table with a
candle and a Bible. Each time I sit
morning in the chilled air. Cather
writes, “He said his prayers before
he rolled out of his blankets, re
membering Father Vaillant’s
maxim that if you said your prayers
first, you would find plenty of time
for other things afterward.”
In my experience the opposite is
true as well. When you do other
things first, there never seems to be
enough time for prayer later on.
Finding time — making time —
for prayer is one of the major steps
toward a satisfactory prayer life.
During an “Introduction to Ca
tholicism” course for adults that I
taught recently, I conducted a non-
scientific survey on prayer. Those
present included men and women
who attended church faithfully as
well as those desiring to return to
the Catholic faith or trying to un
derstand better the faith they grew
up with.
Out of a list of a dozen possible
obstacles to prayer, three surfaced
as the overwhelming ones. They
were:
—Lack of time.
—Not knowing how to pray.
there, I am drawn much more
quickly into the spirit of prayer. Us
ing subdued lighting or a candle
also helps create an atmosphere for
quiet prayer.
In the same way, some people
choose to pray in church. Even
though our church is located in the
central part of the city, we have
managed to keep the doors unlocked
all day each day. Many parishioners
take advantage of that and stop by
for quiet prayer.
One retired man told me that his
noontime visit is the highlight of his
day. A woman, who stops by after
dropping her child off at our school
and before heading to work, told me
with a smile that I had better not
ever lock her out.
Obstacles to prayer will continue
to present themselves. Those who
value prayer as part of their lives
will continue to contend with those
obstacles, working hard to overcome
them.
(Father Weber is pastor of St.
Peter’s Parish in Mansfield, Ohio.)
By Father Herb Weber
Catholic News Service
In her classic novel, Death
Comes for the Archbishop, Willa
Cather depicts the young bishop as
a missionary traveling with his
longtime friend Father Vaillant
throughout the region of 19th-cen
tury New Mexico.
Having slept the night on the
ground, the bishop awakes one
—Too many distractions.
Some in the survey indicated that
the lack of time was of their own
making by also checking “not a high
priority.”
What the 50 participants said is
that prayer is hard and making
room for it in a busy schedule is
especially difficult.
■ ■ ■
Mike, a supervising manager at a
local factory, told me that the only
time he can find for prayer is early
Those who admitted they had not
made prayer a high priority knew
also that the time would never be
found unless they decided that
prayer was vital to a fulfilled life.
■ ■ ■
Perhaps the more surprising ob
stacle to prayer listed on my survey
was the lack of knowledge about
how to pray.
Many good people were taught
prayers when they were young.
They know by memory at least sev
eral basic prayers.
Others may quote
psalms and verses
of church songs.
Saying prayers,
however, is not al
ways the same as
actually praying.
If prayer means
connecting with
in the morning. He rises well before
his school-age children get up. The
house is quiet (the only time the
house is quiet). He reads Scripture
and does centering prayer before an
other busy day starts.
In some ways the scene of Mike
praying before the children get up is
similar to Cather’s bishop praying
in the early hours pf dawn. Having
enough time for prayer is actually
dependent on making enough time.
the heart and soul
of God, then it is a
very adult skill
that has to be de
veloped. Mentors
are necessary.
Even more impor
tant, practice is
required.
Whenever I
teach classes on
prayer, I give par
ticipants opportu
nities to try vari
ous praying tech
niques. Like a
coach, however, I
always suggest that they continue
the practice at home.
That leads to the third major ob
stacle to prayer pointed out by my
class. In fact, this was considered
the most troublesome of all hin
drances to prayer, namely, that
there are too many distractions.
For some, having distractions
during prayer means the mind is
wandering while they are trying to
focus on God. This can happen dur
Prayer cannot be taken for granted. We have to learn to pray,” Pope John Paul II said in a January 2001
apostolic letter closing the jubilee year.
He wrote, “Our Christian communities must become genuine ‘schools’ of prayer,” and he added:
It would be wrong to think that ordinary Christians can be content with a shallow prayer that is unable to fill
their whole life. Especially in the face of the many trials to which today’s world subjects faith, they would be not
only mediocre Christians but ‘Christians at risk.’”
Because baptism represents an entry into God’s holiness, “it would be a contradiction to settle for a life of
mediocrity marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity,” the pope commented. The ideal of perfection, he
said, “must not be misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence possible only for a few.”
Prayer, the pope indicated, doesn’t close in upon itself. Opening the heart to God’s love, “it also opens it to the
love of our brothers and sisters,” enabling people of prayer to shape the world “according to God’s plan.”
9 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!