[Return to Other Carmelite home]
Go backward to The Basis for Prayer
Go up to Top
Go forward to Real Conversation
[Return to Other Carmelite home]
Go backward to The Basis for Prayer
Go up to Top
Go forward to Real Conversation
"What is mental prayer?" she asked.
Since I did not have time for long explanations, I answered, "Well, in a word, it is a time for silent prayer: you just pray by yourself."
"What, for a whole hour? That's much too long! I sometimes pray for ten minutes, fifteen minutes; after that I have nothing left to say."
"Really?"
After a moment's silence, a thought came to mind: "Isn't your kind of prayer exactly like the person who knocks on a friend's door and calls out, Anybody home?' After a while the friend comes out: Do come in,' he says, but as he opens the door to let you enter, you turn your back on him and set off on your way with a Thank you, goodbye.'"
"Oh! come now," she said, a little irritated.
"In any case you can always sit there silently in the chapel," I replied.
On reflection I was concerned that I had been rather unkind to someone who had come for the first time. This person, however, remained docilely still for the whole hour. Later, as she related her experience, I learned that she had strangely taken to mental prayer. At this I happily concluded that my rough treatment had been a providential instrument of healing.
Under the circumstances prayer would be better defined not as "a dialogue with God," but rather as "remaining silent before God." This dialogue with God, who does not speak as we do, differs, of course, from an ordinary conversation. It is rather an interior light, a heart-to-heart intimacy whose fruit is sentiments of gratitude, humility, contrition, or perhaps resolution. The definition given by St. John Damascene "To pray is to offer one's heart to God" conveys this attitude of soul. On the other hand, to define prayer as "dialoguing with God" (St. Augustine), "raising one's heart to God" (Gregory of Nyssa), "friendly conversation with God" (Teresa of Avila) is to have grasped the obvious aspect of prayer. A converse definition of prayer would be "to be silent" and "to submerge one's soul in God." Carrying the concept further, it would be better to say that not only the soul but even the body is submerged in God.
We could say that there are two sides to prayer, the "obverse" (omote in Japanese) and the "reverse" (ura). The "obverse" definition "conversation with God," "raising one's heart to God," "communicating with God" has to do with active prayer (ui no inori), in which we take the initiative. But the "reverse" definition prayer as "remaining silent before God," "being submerged in God," "falling asleep in God" has to do with passive or non-active prayer, which the Japanese call mui no inori.
According to St. John of the Cross the "sleep of the faculties" denotes an advanced state of prayer, but it can be said that in the heart of prayer this state exists from the start. To pray does not mean to tire oneself out thinking about God, but to rest one's heart in God. However, this does not mean that the sufferings of everyday life vanish. We pray as human beings for whom life's problems are not only inevitable but often intensified during these moments. At times prayer can be so filled with distractions that we can no longer discern that we are praying. Yet at precisely such times prayer becomes knowing how to submerge body and soul in God while sinking up to our necks or over our heads in life's tribulations. At this point our tribulations can even be converted into "food for prayer." When we confess "I can no longer pray," then prayer becomes God's work rather than our own effort. When we cry out with sorrow and desire, "I cannot love, help me to love," then God's love, not ours, becomes active. When we find that we can't pray, can't love, can't find intimate friendship with God, and can't raise our hearts to God or even converse with God, the obvious, active definition of prayer will not help at all. Only through letting go of active prayer will we be able, for the first time, to grasp the true meaning of the reverse side of prayer, non-active or passive prayer, the true prayer of prayers. And then we simply say: "Lord, I can't pray. Please pray in me." "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26).