How do you pray?
An article in a recent Saturday Times by Roderick Strange (Rector, St Mary’s University) reminded us that prayer is individual; there is no correct way to pray.
Monsignor Strange highlighted the words of three sages of wisdom.
First, Dom John Chapman, a biblical scholar of the 1930s, gave the advice to “Pray as you can & do not try to pray as you can’t.”. In other words pray in a way that suits you best.
You might sit, or kneel, or walk whilst praying. (William Haigh, former MP, once said that he found God walking in the Yorkshire Dales rather than in a church.)
Some like familiar, repetitive prayers. Some gaze at a cross, a painting or a lighted candle. Some sense God’s presence in solitude, in silence or darkness or reflecting in scripture.
We each have to find our own way to pray.
Second, St John of the Cross, a Carmelite Friar of 16th Century said “God carries each person along a different road, so that you will scarcely find two people following the same route in even half of their journey to God.”.
Our approach to God is unique & personal.
Thirdly, Jesuit Bernard Basset published a book in 1964, “The Noonday Devil” about getting older & how in middle age our spiritual habits change. “My faith has gone to pot.”
It is a sign that we are being called to a deeper depth & greater maturity. Our praying style can shift & change as time passes & as we grow in faith.
So pray as you can & find a setting that creates opportunities for your kind of prayer.
Let us all pray – whatever that way may be.
Amen