Spiritual accompaniment

I recently started re-reading The Tradition of Catholic Prayer from the Benedictine monks of Saint Meinrad Monastery (I have a shelf dedicated to faith books that I return to re-read periodically). When we want to read about prayer, one of the natural places to turn is books written monks!

The depth and breadth of this book is summarized well on the book’s back cover, beginning with the following sentence: “Catholics have a rich and ancient prayer tradition that informs contemporary practice.” No wonder that people looking to deepen their prayer life look – among other places – to the Catholic Church. The variety of Catholic prayer experience and the historical context for this “rich and ancient prayer tradition” are covered engagingly in this very readable book. It’s worth a read for anyone looking to deepen their prayer life; it has helped nourish my ever-present hunger to sustain a rich and deep prayer life. I have been getting copies of this book into the hands of several people each year in recent years…..

A couple passages from this book and my reflections upon them:

• “….the prayer of real people over the centuries….[who] opened their hearts and minds to God in prayer and came away changed by the living God whom they encountered” (page XI).” I have heard two sayings: “There can be no faith life without prayer” and “Prayer is a relationship (i.e., a relationship between the pray-er and God).” When we actively engage in prayer, we do open our hearts and minds to God; an encounter with “the living God” does change us. We can’t help but be changed by an encounter with God. I experienced as a result of an encounter with God in 2016 – after having heard it said in church innumerable times – that God loves me.

• “As Benedictines [the monks who wrote this book] they practice prayer day in and day out, with their brothers in choir, alone in their cells, using formal rites and wordless sighs of the heart” (page XII). There are as many ways to pray and encounter God as there are people who pray – each of us is different and will therefore have our own relationship with God. Personally, my deepest experience of praying to or toward God – in addition to resting in God’s presence when God’s grace comes my direction – happens in “wordless sighs of the heart.” God doesn’t need the sentences and grammar of humanly-constructed language to receive what’s inside of us. Simply presenting oneself to God – in full inner transparency – is the prayer that I find most direct, prayerful, engaging, productive.

Daily prayer is transformative. Wondering how to pray? Check out this previous post on approaches to prayer. Also, attend our Saturday morning Zoom sessions about prayer (info here). Wishing you all the best in deepening your prayer life….

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Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.