Pilgrims of Prayer
When I was young, I bought a bike that took me on a great cycling holiday with friends around France. I became a keen cyclist and my enthusiasm extended to buying magazines about cycling. Yet reading about cycling was no substitute for the joy of getting on my bike and going for a ride. I think it is the same with prayer. I have many books on prayer on my shelves, but reading about prayer is no substitute for prayer itself.
Pope Francis has proposed that, beginning this Advent, this year should be marked as a year dedicated to prayer. In preparation for the Jubilee 2025, whose theme is Pilgrims of Hope, he invites dioceses to promote initiatives to remind people of the centrality of both individual prayer and community prayer. As we begin our new liturgical year, I suggest that here in our parish community of St Thomas we make prayer the top priority in our life.
Sister Ruth Burrow, a Carmelite nun who died recently, wrote extensively on prayer and I find her words are an encouragement to me in maintaining a habit of prayer. She says that when we talk about prayer ‘we are talking and writing not merely about the deepest thing in human life but about its very essence — more, about the mystery of God himself.’
She says that we are created for intimacy with God, and that it is for this intimacy with God that we endlessly yearn. Our search for friendship and intimacy is an important part of being human, and our relationship with God is our very meaning as human beings. It is God who always makes the first move. God is love itself and is ‘the very fount of our existence, enfolding us, inviting us to receive him, drawing us to his heart. We don’t have try and find ways of trying to attract his attention.’
In the final section of the catechism of the Catholic Church devoted to prayer, we read : ‘God calls man first. Man may forget his Creator or hide far from his face; he may run after idols or accuse the deity of having abandoned him; yet the living and true God tirelessly calls each person to that mysterious encounter known as prayer. In prayer, the faithful God’s initiative of love always comes first; our own first step is always a response.’
So there it is: God is waiting for you and me. He created us and, more than anything else, desires us to know His love. What encourages me is that He has given us the Holy Spirit to enable this to be a reality. St Paul says:
‘The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself express our plea in a way that could never be put into words.’
There is a very useful booklet that gives some suggestions of ways of prayer that you can access on the internet.
