Is Our Prayer Being Heard?

We may sometimes wonder if our prayers are being heard by God.  The deeper question we are wise to ask first, is if we are truly aware of Who we are talking to when we pray. 

St. Teresa of Avila would advise her sisters that “a prayer in which a person is not aware of whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of whom, I do not call prayer however much the lips move” (Interior Castle 1.1.7).  She goes on to observe how “anyone in the habit of speaking before God’s majesty as though he were speaking to a slave, without being careful to see how he is speaking, but saying whatever comes to his head and whatever he has learned from saying at other times, in my opinion is not praying.”

When it comes to prayer, far too many souls, even good religious souls, can seem to be just moving their lips with memorized words. There are some who prove to be talking to themselves. In the 1972 dark comedy The Ruling Class, actor Peter O’Toole played the character Jack Gurney. Jack was a paranoid schizophrenic British nobleman who thought he was God. When asked how he knew he was God, the revealing answer came, “Simple. When I pray to him, I find I am talking to myself.”  Even among good religious souls with a firm belief in God, St. Teresa recognizes how they sometimes think they are hearing God speak to them, while in fact they are “gradually composing what they themselves want to be told” (Interior Castle 6.3.14).

Moving our lips with memorized words, talking to ourselves—these pitfalls of prayer are more common than we might dare to imagine. 

I will always remember being a young pastor of a rural parish. One morning prior to daily Mass, I was sitting in the back, praying the Liturgy of Hours. An elderly man came in, put his hand into the baptismal font, looked directly at the crucifix and clearly prayed as he signed himself, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  It was undoubtedly clear to Whom he was talking.  The sight of him praying so devoutly filled me with remorse, for I had just finished a quick gesture over myself while moving my lips with something like “Fathersonholyspirit.”  God might have wondered whom I was talking to—Fathersonholyspirit sounds like just one person.  If my intention in prayer is to be heard by the three persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, it would be helpful to be more fully aware of Whom I am talking to.    

St. John Chrysostom taught, “Whether or not our prayer is heard depends not on the number of words, but on the fervor of our souls.”

In teaching us to pray, Jesus warned us to “not be like the hypocrites” (Mt. 6:5). The word hypocrite might sound harsh, but in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written, it means an actor. Jesus is warning us not to act as if we have a relationship with God. To then help guide us into an authentic relationship with Him, the Lord Himself instructs us, “This is how you are to pray” (Mt. 6:9). The very few, powerful words of The Lord’s Prayer are then revealed to us.

Imagine the delight within Jesus as His first words make it profoundly clear how we are now talking to “Our Father in heaven” (Mt. 6:9).  Prior to that moment, the name God had revealed, “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex. 3:14), might have made it seem more of a mystery to whom we were talking in prayer.  Now we are much more able to be aware of how it is Our Father in Heaven Whom we address in our prayer. 

What we go on to ask Our Father in these words of His Son has the power to bring about in us the effect for which we ask.  To petition for His name to be hallowed, to be holy, has the power in that moment for His name to be made holy in us. To petition for His kingdom to come has the power for His kingdom to come in us. To petition for His will to be done has the power for His will to be done in us. Our petitions then go on to affirm in us the truth that Our Father in Heaven provides what is needed daily, forgives our sins, delivers us from evil, and we pray leads us not into temptation. What a shame it would be for these words to be a mere movement of our lips, memorized words uttered without fervor, unaware of what is being asked and of whom.

To a penitent who had been away from the sacrament of Reconciliation for quite some time, I asked them to pray The Lord’s Prayer one time as a penance. From the other side of the screen, they laughed, “Just one Our Father? That’s it?”

“Yes, but pray it,” I responded. “I could ask you to pray fifty Our Fathers, but then you might just be saying words.” 

When a soul is truly aware of Whom they are talking to, what they are asking, and who it is who is asking it and of Whom, it makes all the difference in prayer.

In the 1993 British biographical film Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis (played by Anthony Hopkins) marries Joy Davidman (played by Debra Winger) who only a few months after their marriage is diagnosed with cancer.  In a moment when she had seemed to recover, his pastor reassured him, “I know how hard you have been praying, and now God is answering your prayer.”  To which he responded, “That is not why I pray.  I pray because I can’t help myself.  I pray because I’m helpless.  I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.  It doesn’t change God.  It changes me.”  No mere movement of the lips there.  A sincere awareness of Whom he was speaking to, what he was asking, and who it was who is asking and of Whom.  The cancer did return, his wife did die, and having heard his prayer, God continued to help him, to change him.

The next time we are tempted to wonder if our prayer is being heard by God, let us first take a moment to reflect on whether we are sincerely aware of Whom we are talking to when we pray. 

Editor’s Note: This author’s books, Remain in Me and I in You: Relating to God as a Person, Not an Idea and And You Will Find Rest: What God Does in Prayer, are available from Sophia Institute Press.

Photo by Eric Mok on Unsplash