Reaching the oasis of prayer means crossing the spiritual desert

The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides a beautiful summary of the different ways of praying. After summarising the different approaches the heart can use to reach God, the Catechism provides an entire chapter on the tradition of prayer.

Whenever we pray as believers, we do not pray alone. We are united with all other believers, both with those who are living in this life and those who have gone to eternity. When we pray, we join the long line of those who sought to walk the difficult path of the interior life. Since they have reached the destination of heaven, we can rely on their witness, teachings, methods and wisdom to pursue and seek to learn the way of prayer.

The Catechism is not coy with us. It has an honesty at times that borders on bluntness. When it comes to the spiritual life, there is no room for fluff. The stakes are too high and the demands are too real to be coddled.

The Catechism teaches: “Prayer cannot be reduced to the spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse: in order to pray, one must have the will to pray.”

If we want to pray, we need to accept the tradition of prayer, learn from those who have mastered the art of prayer, and allow our wills to be strengthened by a desire and discipline for prayer.

The desire to pray is a good beginning. It is an initiative of God, as he calls us to speak and listen to him. But desire by itself will not carry the demands of the interior life. We also need discipline. We need the will to pray.

As the Lord Jesus taught us, we need to put our hand to the plow and not look back.

The idea of needing a discipline for prayer can shatter the fantasy and idealism that sometimes surrounds the notion of prayer. While some euphoria can be good initially, it needs to be matured and fortified if it’s going to persevere through the purgative way of prayer.

The Catechism further teaches: “Nor is it enough to know what the Scriptures reveal about prayer: one must also learn how to pray. Through a living transmission (Sacred Tradition) within ‘the believing and praying Church,’ the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God how to pray.”

By learning from the Sacred Scriptures and the by placing ourselves within the living tradition of the Church, we allow ourselves to encounter the Holy Spirit and enter into his school of prayer. The Spirit wants to instruct and guide us in the ways of God. He wants to reveal and teach us the mystery and the methods of prayer. The Spirit is present within the sources of God’s revelation and within our own hearts as we humble ourselves and seek to be taught and disciplined in the way of prayer.

The Catechism explains: “The tradition of Christian prayer is one of the ways in which the tradition of faith takes shape and grows, especially through the contemplation and study of believers who treasure in their hearts the events and words of the economy of salvation, and through their profound grasp of the spiritual realities they experience.”

The tradition of prayer gives impetus and structure to the tradition of faith. Believers can grow in both prayer and faith by allowing the Holy Spirit to lead them through the twists and turns of the interior life. When we accept the call and begin to reflect upon the revelations of God – upon his deeds and words in the midst of the human family – we are spiritually accompanied by the holy ones and the people of prayer before us who meditated and reflected upon those same revelations.

As we dive into the revelations of God, we experience God himself. We see how he speaks and how he acts. The ways of God are not strange to us, but become a part of us and the way we speak, think and act.

As we drink from the oasis of prayer and accept the sands of the spiritual desert that come with and surround it, we are given an extreme access to God and an innermost, incommunicable understanding of who he is.

Through the discipline and consolations of prayer, we are able to touch the Face of God and to know of his immense love for us and for all creation.

Photo: Italian competitor Marco Gozzano takes on some water during the 20th Marathon des Sables in Rissani, Morocco, 10 April 2005. The Marathon des Sables is a 6 day/151 mile (243 km) endurance race across the Sahara Desert in Morocco. (Photo credit PIERRE VERDY/AFP/Getty Images.)

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