Being
aware that all the gifts of ministry in the Church flow through Jesus Christ and
knowing that all those who attempt to minister in His church must have a
profound relationship with Him, as I began the Diaconate Formation Process I
resolved to develop and build up my prayer skills. What I learned is that
building profound prayer begins not with improving my prayer by my own effort
but it begins with me surrendering to the discipline of praying daily formal
prayer based in Sacred Scripture. I learned that praising God in the words that
He revealed to us in the Psalms and other scripture allowed me to be infused
with the grace that opens us and reveals us to ourselves. This article details
some of the lessons I learned while my prayer skills grew.
Why do we pray? In the Christian
tradition the basic purposes of prayer are to give adoration to God, to thank
him for His blessings, to ask pardon for sins, and to ask for His grace and
help. There are many forms of prayer, for example: common prayer (with others)
and private prayer (alone); common prayer may be liturgical or non-liturgical;
private prayer may be vocal or mental. Meditation a type of mental prayer
consists of reflections on a spiritual theme with the aim of moving the
meditator toward some virtue that Christ modeled. Contemplation a form of
interior prayer in which one admires or rests in the knowledge and love of God.
Contemplation is not a craft to be acquired, moments of contemplation are all
gifts that are delivered to those who pray frequently and who fill their prayer
with praise. In the words of Saint John of the Cross, "Contemplation is the
science of love, which is an infused knowledge of God." In its purest form
contemplation is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Yet in all its' forms human prayer arises from God.
Prayer in Liturgy and non-liturgical prayer have one source; God. When we enter
into prayer we are always responding to God's call to love as He loves. First,
out of love, God calls us to Him before we can notice any urge to pray.
Man may
forget his Creator or hide far from his face; he may run after idols or accuse
the deity of having abandoned him; yet the living and true God tirelessly calls
each person to that mysterious encounter known as prayer. In prayer, the
faithful God's initiative of love always comes first; our own first step is
always a response. As God gradually reveals himself and He reveals man to
himself, prayer appears as a reciprocal call, a covenant drama. Through words
and actions, this drama engages the heart. It unfolds throughout the whole
history of salvation. (CCC #2567)
The goal of this article is to delve into some of
the skills that are helpful when we seek to develop trusting, confident prayer.
The word skills used here has more to do with developing attitudes and practices
that open us up to allow God's grace to enlighten our heart than it does with
building prayer muscles. These insights shared here are the results of yielding
to the Holy Spirit's guidance while I was experiencing the Diaconate Formation
Process. On my journey into the Diaconate, the Holy Spirit called me into the
awareness that the Diaconate is not something to be grasped rather to receive
this gift one must humble and empty himself and accept the reality that the gift
is delivered only when one surrenders to the will of the Father. I was lead to
understand that becoming a deacon is a gift accomplished through humbly
accepting the present of the office of servant of charity, the office of
assisting at the altar and the office of proclaiming the Word, only if the grace
is given by the Father. I was made aware that the entire ministry in the Church
flows through the heart of Christ and that in order to be a good servant of
Christ I must be in His Heart. For me the way into this reality is a vibrant
prayer life. Thus I sought to improve my prayer skills/attitudes and I offer
some of the gifts I experienced with you in this article.
Before I share the insights I learned let me tell
you about myself. My name is Lawrence Crudup; I am a native of Portsmouth, VA.
On May 28 1966 at the age of 21 I entered the Church while I was attending
Virginia State University in Petersburg VA. I have lived in Harrisburg, PA since
1976 with my wife of 42 years Lena Epps Crudup. I have always sought leadership
positions in the Church and the desire to pursue becoming a candidate for the
Diaconate came from several persons and situations. When, after 27 years the
Diocese of Harrisburg announced the establishing of a formation program for the
Permanent Diaconate, many members of my parish told me I should apply. I was
impressed by the fact that some of these persons knew me only from my service in
church. Among those who influenced me strongly is Sister Helene Trueitt, ASC who
told me I had to apply because of the gifts God has given me. She said that
these gifts where needed by the Church and I should offer them as a deacon. The
most profound encouragement came from Lena my wife, she said she believed that I
was being called and that I had the faith, the skills, the gifts and the
sensitive heart a deacon needs. The most challenging reality for me was that I
have a personality that causes me to seek to gain the attention and praise of
others. I had no doubt I was being called to become a deacon; my concern was
that I was striving too intensely to apprehend the office. In other words I
feared that I was not capable of surrendering my will properly which would allow
me to obey the Father's call. I saw myself as too flawed to allow the love of
Christ to flow through me to His people. It was through the transition of my
prayer life that I was made open to the powerful faith that is necessary to
trust God. This faith developed when I made the commitment to yield to daily
prayer, to celebrate and to praise God in His own words. Then the growth in
awareness of the reality that I am not in charge of the outcome of my prayer
life began to dawn. Also I understood that I was not the source of my desire to
become a deacon. The desire to become a deacon is also a part of the gift of the
call. In my prayer I was reminded often that God's Word does not return to Him
void. It is the power of God's will that accomplishes all good. With this
awareness that if I humbled myself and if I yielded with trust in the Holy
Spirit the outcome of my response to His call will be accomplished through God's
Will.
The first step I employed in the effort to
improve my prayer skills/attitudes was to make a diligent commitment to a
regular routine of formal prayer. In my case the method chosen is saying
Morning and Evening prayer each day from the Liturgy of the Hours. Now I am
not prescribing that everyone who wishes to deepen their prayer life needs
to pray the Liturgy of the Hours but regular formal prayer is necessary for
a person to enter into the meditative and contemplative prayer forms.
Before I could experience these deeper prayer
forms I had to adjust my understanding of the mechanics of formal prayer. My
bias judged formal prayer as not being spontaneous enough and I thought the
words seemed stiff, unnatural and limited. I liked prayer, praise and
worship that felt lively and familiar in the style of my early faith
history. I was reared in a Baptist ecclesial community.
My attitude towards formal prayer began to shift
when I began to immerse myself in the praise included in the prayers and I
focused less on how I felt saying the prayers. In other words I became a
student of the master teacher of prayer, the Holy Spirit. My focus on prayer
changed away from thinking of formal prayer as something that I did and it
shifted into experiencing prayer as a dwelling to enter or more precisely
prayer as an envelope or tent, a place, a state of being outside of time.
Inside this place I listened to the praise present in the Psalms and
Canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours. The listening allowed me to access
the object of all prayer: to communicate with the Triune God, to admire
God's perfections and power and to be intimate with God and thus to know
more about God and knowing more to then be able to love God more deeply.
This knowing about God is not about analyzing various concepts of His
divinity but it is about inhabiting the reality of prayerful praise found in
sacred scripture. In the Church it is through living Tradition that the Holy
Spirit teaches the children of God how to pray. In fact prayer cannot be
reduced to the spontaneous outpouring of an interior impulse; rather it
implies contemplation, study and a grasp of the spiritual realities one
experiences. (Comp. CCC #557) This moment of transition of the perception of
the character of prayer is like learning to swim where one relaxes enough to
let the water lift and float you. The skill that this relaxing derives is
trust. The experiencing of meditative and contemplative prayer arrives
through the grace of the Holy Spirit and these forms of prayer cannot be
apprehended by just personal desires, actions or habits. Prayer and the
skills/attitudes that enhance it are gifts which are built and improved by
regular formal use.
Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is
expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming
the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit,
but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to
Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the
words of prayer are in vain. (CCC #2562)
If our heart is far from God, the words of our
prayer are in vain. Getting our heart closer to God is the result derived
when we routinely and confidently enter into formal prayer. Adoring and
praising God is the best currency to employ in prayer to effect closeness.
Yet we need to explore the reality that God does not need our praise. Our
praise adds nothing to His greatness. Our praise effects us. Praising God
opens us to love Him more.
But what happens when we use prayers of praise?
Below are the words of John A. Hardon, S.J.
(June 18, 1914 - December 30, 2000) on Prayer, Adoration & Praise. He was a
Jesuit priest, writer, and theologian.
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Prayer/Prayer_010.htm
Prayer that focuses on praise allows us to
notice the dynamic authority of God because behind every creature and all
matter is the creative power of God; that except for His Will and Love no
living thing or no material thing would exist; that every creature and all
creation, if we notice, is a divine invitation to praise the Creator.
Praising God really means using all that He
created, not stopping with them but seeing beyond, behind and beneath them
not only God's act of creation but His constant sustaining divine power
which I can praise whenever I encounter any and all the things that God
made.
There are more vistas to prayer than adoration
admiration and praise, but no other forms are higher and deeper than these.
None is higher because it is the kind of prayer that the Angels have been
"singing" since the dawn of creation, and that intelligent creation is
destined to be praying into the reaches of eternity.
On the topic of Praising God in Prayer two
passages of Scripture illumine and inform us about what can happen if we
praise God while we are undergoing trials: Daniel 3:51-94 and Acts 16:16-34.
Praising God in the presence of evil and during times of trial is a skill
that we need to understand and practice. Our defense against the devil and
his minions is the victory Christ has won over death and sin. Understanding
that prayers of praise is a portal into the Heart of Christ, enables those
who praise to be able to trust with greater assurance that Jesus Christ has
overcome the world and all that is evil in it. They are better equipped to
receive His mercy and loving peace. The reading from the Book of Daniel is
such a powerful revelation of the way God joins with us to lead us through
the fiery furnaces we must go through. Notice that this prayer is 99% praise
and does not plead for removal of the test of their faith. Verse 92 is most
intense I think. Those who pray and praise with proficiency know that it is
in Christ, through Christ and with Christ that we weather the storms that
test our faith. Know the all of us will be tested.
Maturing and growing our prayer skills/attitudes
means learning how to trust that God hears and answers all prayer. For me
learning this trust was not and is neither easy nor automatic. I like to
measure the results of my actions. Most often my measure for prayer is how I
feel when the time of prayer is completed. This observation brings three
questions: What should we do when we encounter distractions and dryness in
our prayer? How can I build the trust that allows me to know I have been
heard by God? What does good prayer look like and should I look for results
from my prayer?
The issue of dryness I learned has two aspects:
(1) What I expect my prayer to bring to me and (2) am I listening to God or
am I listening to my own interior voice of wants. I gained insights into how
to navigate this quagmire in the book Introduction to the Devout Life by
Saint Francis de Sales. In Part II Chapter 9 on Concerning Dryness in
Meditation is written these instructions: If you are experiencing dryness or
it seems consolation from your prayer is not to be experienced keep praying.
One should not assume that the gift of God's attention or the gift of a
comforting moment is ours simply because we sought God's presence.
What I took away is the reality that I need to
drop my expectations about what God's response to my prayer should look
like. I needed to learn to pray with a patient attitude that is open to the
glance of God, should He choose look in my direction and notice me. In my
prayer I needed to be present to Him and silent before Him. This is a big
part of what good prayer consists. Getting silent before God is not possible
by just my own effort. Thus I sought to enter His courts with PRAISE! The
best source of praise is the Psalms.
In his book; Praying The Psalms Thomas Merton
(1915 - 1968) writes:
When we praise God, says St. Augustine, there
must be order in our praise. It must be in-telligent, spiritual. We must not
be carried away by emotionalism. Nor should we on the other hand be so
"objective" that there is no longer anything personal in our prayer to God.
In order that we may remain on the straight road, turning neither to the
right nor to the left, "the best way is to seek the way of praise is the
Scriptures of God." (Melius iter laudis in Scriptura Dei quaerimus.)
St. Augustine adds that God has taught us to
praise Him, in the Psalms, not in order that He may get something out of
this praise, but in order that we may be made better by it. Praising God in
the words of the Psalms, we can come to know Him better. Knowing Him better
we love Him better, loving Him better we find our happiness in Him.
'Therefore, because He knew that this would be for our benefit, He made
Himself more lovable to us by praising Himself." These words, taken from St.
Augustine's commentary on Psalm 144, are supplemented by others in his
De
Doctrina Christiana, where he says: "God wants to be loved not in order that
He may get something out of it, but in order that those who love Him may
receive an eternal reward. And this reward is God Himself, whom they love."
(De Doct. Christ. i:29.)
The contemplation we learn from the Psalter is
not mere "speculation." The Psalms are not ab-stract treatises on the divine
nature. In them we learn to know God not by analyzing various con-cepts of
His divinity, but by praising and loving Him. The Psalms being hymns of
praise, they only reveal their full meaning to those who use them in order
to praise God.
To understand the Psalms, we must experience the
sentiments they express, in our own hearts. We must sing them to God and
make our own all the meaning they contain.
Hence, St. Augustine concludes, our eternal life
of praise must begin here on earth, in time. All our thoughts, our
"meditation" in this life should center on the praise of God "because the
eternal exultation of our future life will be the praise of God, and no one
can be fitted for that future life who has not exercised himself in praise
in this present life.
Reading this I came to understand that my prayer
life should be centered in Sacred Scripture and be focused in the Psalms
because this is God teaching us how to adore Him using His own words as
delivered by His inspiration. Praising God here on earth can allow us to
experience glimpses of heaven. If I am focused on Him through His words then
I am open to be infused if He chooses to give me consolation and I am in His
presence. This is how to build trust and this is what good prayer looks
like. I now like to think of prayer not as an act but I think of it as a
place, a place to go to "hang out with a friend." That friend is Jesus
Christ.
To learn to pray, a person should pray, that is,
give the time to it and try it. Praying is like making bread. Instructions
and suggestions help, but you must do it yourself and not just talk about
it. Try to remember, when you pray, how important it is to praise God and
thank Him for all He is and has done. It is shameful to pray only when you
want something.
Remember also that prayer can be and usually is
work. There are times when it is very hard work. Be prepared for boredom,
tedium and dissatisfaction. There are many times when you will not want to
pray or when you seem to get nothing from prayer. Be able to bite the bullet
and go right on, since you are not doing it for personal satisfaction but
rather in gratitude to God for all of the blessings He has given and we pray
in imitation of Jesus Christ who always prays to the Father. As much as you
can, avoid rushing through prayers. Also try not to be mechanical or
thoughtless.
If you would like to begin to explore deepening
and maturing you prayer skills please do not begin this as a private
exercise. Seek a prayer partner someone whom you can trust to keep your
confidences, a good prayer group one with an informed leader or seek a
Spiritual Director. Your pastor may be a source person for getting
information on any of these for you. This suggestion is offered to keep you
from being overwhelmed by the pressure you may experience when you get bored
or bogged down when you begin. Always keep in mind that Jesus Christ has
victory over the devil and that if we seek the Father through the Son with
the Holy Spirit we can share in this victory. The quality of our prayer, our
prayer life and our prayer skills/attitudes will determine the level of
confidence we experience when we pray.
Lawrence Crudup is a native of Portsmouth, VA.
He and his wife of 42 years Lena Epps Crudup have lived in Harrisburg, PA
since 1976. Lawrence is a retired pharmaceutical sales representative and he
holds a BA degree in Economics from Virginia State University. They are
parents of a son, Lawrence and a daughter Lisa. Their son and his wife Terri
are parents of their granddaughter Isabella Grace. Deacon Crudup has been
assigned to parish ministry at Saint Patrick Cathedral in Harrisburg, PA.
