For me, prayer is a movement of the heart; it is a simple glance toward Heaven; it is a cry of gratitude and love in times of trial as well as in times of joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus. . . . I have not the courage to look through books for beautiful prayers.... I do like a child who does not know how to read; I say very simply to God what I want to say, and He always understands me."
- St Thérèse of Lisieux
In the recent months I started questioning myself whether or not I really knew how to pray. My ‘prayers’ – if you could call them prayers, that is, always consisted of disjointed phrases, or just a whirlwind of events happening in my mind, not necessarily logical I must add.
Time and again, I’d find myself veer off my conversation with God with mindless ramblings in my head then wonder what happened and second guess the quality of my prayer.
St Thérèse of Lisieux gives us an insight of what she thought prayer was. To her, it is something simple, sincere and without the demand of big, words spoken eloquently. They were the words of a child.
I remember I was always reluctant to lead a crowd in prayer. I had always thought that my prayers didn’t qualify to be heard by the wider public. They didn’t have the fancy words that others normally used, nor did they possess that fluency that people said them in. No, my prayers were disjointed, rather simple in nature and… short.
One thing I didn’t know back then was that big words don’t necessarily make good prayers. A prayer can have all that bang in it but without heart, it is as good as nothing. One could ramble on and on for hours but still end up like that Pharisee described in Luke 18:9-14.
St Germaine who was left in the barn by her stepmother spent countless nights shivering in her sleep praying the same few words over and over again – “Dear God, please don't let me be too hungry or too thirsty. Help me to please my mother. And help me to please you.” And it is through her sincerity of heart (not fancy words) that she grew in profound holiness in that cold barn.
As much as the conventional prayers consist of words and phrases, these shouldn’t be the things that define prayer. Prayer can be defined by the submission of one’s cares and joys to the One who is all loving. It can be the quiet whisper of the heart. It can be going through those distractive thoughts that pop up with the Lord.
I suppose prayer, being so many things, can be summed up in us making the choice to spend time with Him. Us allowing our Creator to hold us in His loving arms, allowing Him to look at us in the eye without running away.
And I guess that is all He wants of us – not lengthy or extravagant words, not coherent phrases, just the simpleness of our hearts and our desire to love Him and let Him love us without reservation.
I’m off to pray. How ‘bout you?
