....faith and life....life and faces

Prayer is  the  best  way to reach faith and to find yourself.

Prayer difficulties

"The most normal and simple actions of the heart are also the hardest and most time-consuming for us to learn: kindness, unselfishness,  being silent and understanding, love". This is how the theologian Karl Rahner once put it .

Even a conversation may be hard to carry on. Often, people who know each other well sit together, hardly saying a word.  No wonder our conversation with God is sometimes difficult. People trying to pray sometimes say: "I cannot pray, - or not anymore. I am so empty inside". - There is only one type of person  who does not have any difficulties with prayer: the thoughtless Pharisee. Prayer is a lifetime effort which never comes to an end. In the morning, most people do not feel at all like talking.  When we come home in the evening,  we are usually not talkative either.  How are we supposed to be conversational vis-à-vis God?  We still have our job in mind. Concentration and inner calm are lacking.

Is this what happens to you? As soon as I start pulling myself together and decide to pray, I suddenly remember that this or that still has to be done. Then, praying often seems to take too much time. And does not St. Jerome, a theologian from the 5th century, agree when he says: "All works of the faithful are prayer"?

Modern man seems  to  have  greater  difficulties entering into  conversation with God than previous generations.  It no longer appears necessary to ask God for things because today,  we know our world and can explain almost everything. Instead of  praying for a good  harvest,  we buy fertilizers; if we are ill, we phone a doctor instead of calling on  God.  We see ourselves active everywhere and God seems to be so far away.  Has He really anything to do with my life? Do I not  talk to a wall when I pray?   Does  God really answer me? Because of all these - often unconscious - objections to prayer we do not even try to pray. Behind many of these  objections is a wrong conception of prayer and often also a false image of God, which we will discuss here.

Why pray?

Everyone who has tried to pray can confirm this: when I succeed in getting past distractions  and  beginning  to pray,  I experience not only closeness to God, but also to myself. An Indian Yogi once said:  "An arrow is not carried to the aim  but pulled back a few  centimeters in order to fly a hundred meters".  In the same way the spirit withdraws into prayer; after that, work can be resumed with increased dynamism.

The precedent of Christ

Christian  life  is  not  tied to a code of ethics,  but to the  person of Christ, whose life and words are our points of orientation. Matthew 4,19 reports how Jesus gathered His disciples by calling: "Follow me!" Immediately they left their fishing nets and followed Him.

But following  Him  does not mean copying Him. We would like to have ready instructions for everything. However, this is exactly what Christ did not give. He does not want good to stay fixed, but always to be continued and improved. His example is the norm and model. But a model is open to realization by others according  to  their  peculiarity,  ability  and  the times they live in. So we cannot get around our own judgment and personal decision.

The Scriptures say in an  abbreviated  form that we are to become "another Christ".  The way He loves and  serves, we  are to love and serve. Every day, a Christian meets Christ to learn from Him and discuss his problems in prayer: "How would You handle this situation?"

All of this sounds good. But did Christ not dismally fail with His way of life? If we want to live a Christian life with all the consequences, we will very often be judged unreasonable by others. The person who does not use his elbows, does not pursue success unconditionally, loves his enemies, fights for what is right even to his own disadvantage, takes the side of the weak,  searches for truth and still finds time to pray, is considered unfit for life,  too stupid for this world. No wonder there are so many who do not want this, or who are unable to achieve it.

This is the reason  why  people  can say: reality looks different, or they are not better either. Our society as a whole, as well as many individuals, are a long way from really being "Christian". Is this an excuse for our own lack of  readiness?  Or  should  somebody  who  cannot  make  it  be  told  he is not a Christian?  Nobody  has  the right to judge others in a pharisaic way;  nobody knows the conditions  and  difficulties existing in another person's life.

When somebody suffers from his incompleteness,  but  keeps  starting again to try to realize the ideal,  Christ is with him,  as  we  learn  from the Scriptures. It takes courage to admit:  "I am not perfect yet,  the way I live now. I advance, but I also fall back and I often  lose my goal from sight." The demands of the Gospel do not allow us to stand still. When we know Jesus' words, we have to move forward, regardless of how far we get. And doing this,  we change ourselves  -  and we also change the world.