A seminar on prayer?

by Fr Ian

I've still got two final posts on prayer to add to the eight sections already available.

In the first two posts, I tried to give a broad definition of Christian prayer, and Roland responded with some observations and criticisms in a post of his own. There was a good discussion in the comments below the posts.

Since then I've quickly added a further six posts, focusing on different aspects of prayer.

It occurred to me that we might be able to look at these six posts as a whole (because they're really just separate sections of a single essay) and have a kind of seminar using the comments box below this post.

So to make it easy to read them in order (by clicking on them, of course) here are the other posts so far:

Post 3: the necessity of prayer

Post 4: the primacy of prayer

Post 5: vocal prayer and mental prayer, or meditation

Post 6: affective prayer and contemplative prayer

Post 7: Christian meditation

Post 8: A method of contemplative prayer

I hope that at least some readers of these posts will find them interesting and even helpful. And I hope we might have an interesting and productive discussion below.

Here are all the posts, in the form of two PDF documents. Part 2 includes a section on the drift towards prayerlessness in the modern Church and another section containing some reassuring facts about prayer.

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (8)

by Fr Ian

A method of contemplative prayer

Father James Borst, a Mill Hill Missionary priest who worked in India for many years, formulated a basic method of contemplative prayer for use by all Christians.

Jim Borst, 1932-2018

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (7)

By Fr Ian

Keeping in mind everything that we’ve covered so far, in this post and the next I’d like to advocate two simple and practical ways of praying. These are two concrete practices that can help us move beyond a superficial level of prayer towards a more contemplative experience, strengthening the bond of communion between ourselves and God in the process.

'But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and you our Father who sees in secret will reward you' (Matthew 6:6) Photo: a room in a Capuchin Franciscan retreat centre.

Preparation for prayer: recollection

First let's recognise that if we want to pray well we can’t just turn rapidly from our ordinary daily activities and glide easily into profound conversation with God. We have to prepare ourselves beforehand. The Catholic spiritual tradition envisages three stages of preparation for prayer: immediate, proximate and remote.

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (6)

by Fr Ian

Different types and different stages of prayer, cont.

Alonso Cano, The Apparition of Christ Crucified to Saint Teresa de Jesus

Spanish, 1629, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

C. Affective prayer

A well-known saying of Saint Teresa of Avila is that in our relationship with God the important thing is not to think a great deal but to love a great deal.[16] The goal of prayer isn’t to entertain profound ideas and thoughts about God, even less to construct original theories about God, but to strengthen the bonds of a real, personal communion with God.

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (5)

by Fr Ian

Different types and different stages of prayer

We can divide prayer into two broad categories, which also describe the two main stages of progress in prayer: active and passive.

The early stages of Christian faith, the period of initial conversion, ascetic discipline and the development of basic Christian attitudes, tend to entail a lot of activity and effort on our part. As we progress spiritually we learn to rely far less on our own natural abilities and we surrender increasingly to God’s influence and direction.