The Action of Prayer

...[W]e have been looking at making action more contemplative, finding a contemplative dimension in our actions. But there is a real sense in which prayer is itself an action, an action whose fruit and extent cannot be measured or assessed; its ways are secret, not only secret from others but also secret from ourselves. The greater part of the fruit of our prayer and contemplation remains hidden with Christ in God.

The autobiography of St Therese of Lisieux culminates in a celebration of this power of prayer: she compares it to the lever of Archimedes which is able to raise up the world... This power of active contemplation belongs to every Christian, is realised in every Christian who participates in the fullness of the Christian vocation... 

Prayer is opening oneself to the effective, invisible power of God. One can never leave the presence of God without being transformed and renewed in his being, for this is what Christ promised. The thing that can only be granted by prayer belongs to God (Luke 11.13). However such a transformation does not take the form of a sudden leap. It takes time. Whoever persists in surrendering himself to God in prayer receives more than he desires or deserves. Whoever lives by prayer gains an immense trust in God, so powerful and certain, it can almost be touched. He comes to perceive God in a most vivid way. Without ever forgetting our weakness, we become something other than we are.

Mary David Totah OSB, Deepening Prayer: Life Defined by Prayer

I was so pleased to discover Sister Mary David's comments here. As I have proved on this blog over the years, it is hard to write of the life of prayer without seeming to assume a kind of sanctity or something which I most definitely lack, or without seeming (as sometimes in a Quaker context!) to be making excuses for not getting out there in the real world among the muck and brass of politics and protest. But there really is more to it than that.

The problem seems often to be that when writing of spiritual realities one is simply dealing with things that cannot be proved or demonstrated. The life of the spirit is not like that. When George Fox wrote, "and this I knew experimentally", he didn't mean that he had tested his propositions according to the scientific method: he meant that he had experienced the presence and guidance of Christ directly.

I am coming more and more, exponentially really, to discover that persisting in surrendering myself to God in prayer is the centre of all that I am called to do. But in order to do this without coming apart, as it were, I do need to be part of a eucharistic community, in literal fact. Just as the life of prayer opens one "to the effective, invisible power of God", the Eucharist is the making of that power real in a way that the heart can rely on, rest in, be fed by. Besides,

The liturgy is a great school of prayer. It is part of the environment of prayer and can provide the structured means by which a prayerful life is supported. We are initiated into prayer by the prayers, psalms, hymns of the Church, the Mass of each day, the great poem of the liturgy which spreads itself throughout the year. The Liturgy of the Hours has been compared to a drip putting a steady flow of nutrient into a person's system.

ibid.

Without this environment, this structure of support, this continual nourishment I am in danger of drying up. Practically, something must be done. I have at times described myself as "Quanglican"; it is becoming urgent that I put that into practice as a regular way of life, rather than as an occasional refreshment. What this will look like in practical terms I am not yet certain. I do know that, for me, it is fast becoming an indissoluble part of the surrender to which I seem to find myself increasingly to be called.