Notes on Prayer

Saint Charbel Makhlouf (2017) by Nayez Alwan, Faraya, Lebanon

NOTES ON PRAYER

God is found in the heart, whether in desolation or consolation. The heart that seeks God has already found God because the heart is directed rightly. It is the heart that has gone astray that is in danger of losing God, because God is sought and chosen freely.

“What Is the Essence of Monasticism?” 

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/09/what-is-essence-of-monasticism.html

Distraction in prayer is normal. The remedy during prayer is to simply lead our attention back to the words and their meaning. When we join our heart to the meaning of the words, it is true prayer. And then there is the prayer of the heart without words.

“On Vocal Prayer”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/10/praying-hands-1508-by-albrecht-durer-on.html

It is a salutary practice indeed to read the Word of God daily. Daily readings for the Mass are a good start. The Liturgy of the Hours is also a profitable source of readings from Scripture. The best approach to the text...is to read quietly and peacefully, with a heart open to the voice of the Holy Spirit. If nothing strikes us, we should not trouble ourselves. ...What is required of us is prayerful attention, not only during the time of prayer but throughout the day and night.

“Not by Bread Alone”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/12/not-by-bread-alone.html

Silence is a quality of the soul. It is acquired and deepened through physical silence, but ultimately the source of genuinely satisfying silence is grace, the gift for which we are best disposed to receive through a dedicated life of prayer, in the most complete sense of the word.

Solitude is the most profound intimacy and union with God. It comes with a cost, but we should not fear paying the price because it is Jesus himself who carries our cross. All is joy for those who embrace what God asks of us, for it is with God's grace that everything good is possible.

Perseverance in prayer and works of virtue despite prolonged aridity is a very characteristic feature of desert spirituality. The monk enters this desert and is thereby purified of their faults and proven in love. The monk loves the desert because it is there that he or she finds God.

“The Spirituality of Silence and Solitude”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-spirituality-of-silence-and-solitude.html

We must engage the world but not allow the world to dictate the terms of our engagement. Silence and solitude, time with God are means of union with God, not escapism. Christ did not escape from the world. He entered the world in order to redeem it. 

“Contemplation Is Action”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/12/contemplation-is-action.html

Prayer is a conversation with God. The Orthodox tradition teaches that prayer must descend from the mind to the heart. True prayer engages the heart.

Eloquence is not only unnecessary but possibly even counterproductive. Heartfelt words are all that is necessary.

Sometimes consolation arrives immediately. At other times the entire prayer is a desert.

The ultimate purpose of prayer is growth in love, which has many faces. If a person finds it difficult to say in prayer that they love God, they can ask God how they can better love him and ask for the grace to love him better.

“Lectio Divina”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2021/04/lectio-divina.html

God speaks in many ways and through many channels, but he speaks in a special, inimitable way in the silent prayer that seeks our full attention.

In a pathologically noisy world, silent prayer is a sign of contradiction.

“The Role of Silence in the Spiritual Life”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-role-of-silence-in-spiritual-life.html

“‘This is my beloved Son, this is my Chosen One.’ We, ourselves, heard this voice from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain.” (2 Pet. 1:17-19)

Jesus lets his three most select apostles witness his glory atop a mountain, just before his crucifixion and death. Jesus wishes, as it were, to strengthen them in their faith just before their great trial about to take place.

We, too, climb mountains to encounter God directly. We go on retreat, taking time away to devote ourselves entirely to prayer and to listening to God.

God does not meet us only at the top of the mountain but also in our daily lives. He speaks to us right where we are.

God is transcendent—yes, he exists above and beyond the peak of the mountain, in his dwelling place in heaven.

But he is also immanent—a fancy word which means that he sustains all creation in love. It is there in the created world and in our ordinary lives that we encounter him.

“The Word of God – August 6, 2021 Reflection”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-word-of-god-august-6-2021-reflection.html

Prayer is directing the heart toward God in love. A constant attitude of the heart is acquired by regular prayer and perseverance in the spiritual life. Grace supplies what is necessary. Over time, an attitude of love becomes more deeply rooted, so that everything we think, say, or do becomes continuous prayer.

Mysticism is attained through prayer because prayer is communication with God, and communication is speaking and listening to someone else. At some point, God is going to speak, and because his words originate from his transcendental being, the communication event is going to be a mystical experience. Mystical experience is but the logical consequence of persevering prayer.

I believe that if a person perseveres in sincere, heartfelt prayer, they will be answered by God. However, a great deal of the prayer that is undertaken, I suspect, is shallow, weak-spirited, or occluded and obstructed by habitual sin—in this situation, God has a difficult time getting through. There's too much static in the line.

“What Is Mysticism?”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2022/01/what-is-mysticism.html

Quietism and Jansenism are joined in place and time—not entirely surprising, because they share the same foundation in a belief in the incapacity of the human will to freely choose grace and to cooperate with it. Both ideological systems (systems of ideas) hold a pessimistic view of human nature after the Fall, which they understand to be essentially depraved and crippled with incapacity as a result.

Curiously, Quietism and Jansenism are associated with antithetical movements in Roman Catholic spirituality—the former, spiritual laxity, the latter, spiritual rigorism.

 

As long as mysticism exists in the Roman Catholic Church—and it always will, because the religion is all about a transcendent spiritual dimension beyond our ordinary and everyday empirical experience—Quietism and its progeny will remain of major interest and concern among the faithful. 

 

“Notes on Quietism”

 

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/09/placeholder-4-of-4.html