Purify your prayer

Aldous Huxley once said, “The more there is of self, the less there is of God.” (from The Perennial Philosophy (1945) * but I don’t remember where)

Saint Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “You were with me, but I was not with you.” (10.38)

SO: When we pray, can we lay aside all earthly cares and simply be with God? It is difficult, to be sure,  since there are so many cares of the day, and there are so many people who have asked for our prayers and who need our prayers. And these cares and needs can distract us, and even though we are in a posture of prayer, our minds are still spinning. When I try to pray for Aunt Lucy, I start thinking about her and the trouble she is in, or I think of my brother-in-law’s cancer, or my mind keeps running a tape recorder the replays over and over the dispute I had at work just a few hours ago. But I don’t think I need to go on: I’ll be you know exactly what I mean and that these things happen to you as well.

Is there any solution or remedy to this? I believe there is. And I’ll bet you known where I’m heading, especially if you’ve been reading these Reflections regularly. My answer: meditation or contemplative prayer.

When we meditate, we begin to separate ourselves from the cares of the day and from earthly matters. We let the thoughts which come to our mind simply pass through our minds without engaging us. We seek a pure experience, a time of being alone with God, being in touch with God who always is within us. We let go of everything else.

A couple of personal observations

·         I find it helpful to use a mantra. It can be the Jesus Prayer, or simply a single word that I keep saying in my mind. I often start with the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner) and then when I’m more settled, I reduce it to just two words: Jesus on the inhalation, mercy on the exhalation.

·         I find that when I get away from my mind’s chatter and spend time in pure contemplative prayer, the situations I didn’t think about start transforming without my rattling on about them. God know the situation. God will take care of it, because he always supplies what I need.

·         I don’t do any intercessory prayer at the time of contemplation. I save that for after my period of contemplation (usually 20 minutes) comes to an end. By doing this, I find that I can pray for Aunt Lucy without thinking about Aunt Lucy’s situation.

·         I never ask or tell God what to do. I hold the person in my heart (where the Spirit resides) and leave it at that. God will deal with things in his way, which is always so much better than my way.

I hope this gives you some ideas about your own prayer.

God bless you.

* The Wikipedia article about The Perennial Philosophy gives an excellent description of what it means, and also outlines Huxley’s book of the same name. It’s worth looking up if you have a few minutes to devote to it.