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

Prayer

Listening

Many are disillusioned with prayer because they fail to get God's reply. And they are right in as much as two partners are required for a conversation. Prayer cannot be a monologue.

A number of scientists  believe that there are intelligent beings on other stars. Radio waves are emitted into space in the hope of making contact, but no one knows whether this message is received somewhere. Does not the same apply to our prayers? We send words of praise, gratitude, supplication and grief into eternity, but  in  what  way  do  we  receive  an answer? This is a major difficulty, may be,  but perhaps we  are  starting at the wrong  end.  The first question should not be whether God can hear us but whether we hear God and listen to Him.  When man prays, he does not have the first word but God. God has already spoken to us. It is not God who answers in a prayer but our prayer is the answer to what  God says.  At the beginning of a prayer there is silence, followed by listening.

Sören  Kierkegaard  said  of himself:  "The more intimate my prayer became, the less I had to say.  Finally I became silent. In the   beginning I thought praying is speaking.  But I  learned that praying is not only being silent, but listening. Praying does not mean hearing oneself speak; praying means becoming silent and waiting until God is being heard." Yes, but does God really speak to me? Or do I just imagine things? Maybe I hear only the echo of my own wishes.

Of course, I cannot expect the word of God to be a mysterious voice or an internal enlightenment. God speaks to me in everything I encounter: this days' happenings and experiences, in a book, a word, a letter, in moods and feelings, in people I meet, the newspaper... Hearing God means listening to circumstances in our time, to our own situation, even to little and normal things in our daily life. It is a matter of keeping the eyes and ears open. Nothing is too small to be included in our prayer. We should learn to see God in ordinary things.  Faith does not, suddenly, recognize "other things" in our everyday, but sees the same things in another way. We see them in their relationship to God and know that, in this way, He has spoken to us.

But the true Word of God to us is Jesus Christ.  At the  beginning of the Gospel according to John we read: "...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us".  God expressed  Himself  in  Jesus  Christ. My prayer is the answer to what Jesus said and did. The Bible reports about this. Of course, it cannot be read like a record of facts. I must listen and realize: It is I, the  Bible is talking about; God is speaking to me. The blind man, the lame, the hungry - these are I.  A prayer that begins with listening is never boring because it does not run out of subjects; it is related to life and continually changing situations require my attention.

Prayer

Being silent and collected

It is wrong to think praying means speaking right away. Prayer begins with silence, and it ends the same way. It is impossible to praise God immediately after some other occupation or when we are angry.  These days, we are always in a hurry,  too rushed and  nervous to switch  gears and  immediately  speak with God. - A caravan is crossing the desert. One morning, the European in the caravan wakes up when the sun is already high in the sky. The natives are sitting in a circle, not saying a word. "What's the matter with you, why don't we continue?" he asks.  Finally,  one of them replies: "We have to wait so that our souls can catch up with us".

Not only do we often flee from God, but we also run away from ourselves. We are   absent-minded and  „scatterbrained"  and must pull ourselves together from these  "dispersals",  come back to ourselves,  concentrate. We cannot get into our "innermost self" when we talk,  but only when we are silent. In this way, we gain depth and find that we become more human.  And only if we come to ourselves,  will  we  be  able  to  find others and finally, God. Praying is difficult not only because God seems so far away, but because we are sometimes further away from ourselves than from God.

It  is  very  difficult  for some people to concentrate even for a few minutes. They feel like jumping up and getting back into the rat-race. But we can train ourselves to endure silence. The first thing to do is to stop the endless talk and noise from outside, assume a relaxed pose with closed eyes and calm hands, and switch off everything else. The inner unrest of all our thoughts is much more difficult to calm down. "Silence is not on top of the mountains and noise not in the markets of towns, but both are in the hearts of man", said a wise man from the East.  As long as silence conveys a feeling of emptiness, the urge to do something, there is no composure, no concentration.

Many people become quiet  by concentrating  on the rhythm of their breath. The experience  of  Eastern  meditation can be very helpful in this.  Or we can tell ourselves that everything else is unimportant now, that the only thing that matters is being with ourselves and God. Whatever we do, it takes time to calm down and, no doubt, a portion of our best and most valuable time. Silence and concentration are the first steps leading to prayer. Sometimes they themselves can already be a deep and fulfilled prayer.

The priest of a church in Paris noticed a man who kept sitting quietly in his pew long after mass had ended. The priest could not tell whether he was praying or asleep. When asked, he explained to the priest: "I am there, I look and say nothing; and God is there and looks at me. That's my prayer". - People who like each other do not have to talk all the time. It is enough for them to know that they are close to each other. God does also understand us when we are silent.