Community Tool Kit

OBSTACLES TO PRAYER

By Rev. Fr. Joseph Stephen (CSsR)

Recently at a prayer seminar held in Taiping. Fr Joseph Stephen spoke on how sin in its various forms prevents us from growing deeper in our prayer life. Below are extracts from his talk .

While we recognise and see the development of prayer in the lives of many be it devotional, novena and meditation groups, charismatic or personal prayer. There is a need to become transparent to God and ourselves as grace opens our lives and makes us see our true selves and what God is inviting us to.

REMOVING THE LOG FROM OUR EYES

Prayer makes us see our true selves. A Trappist monk Fr. Basil Pennington has written a book on “True self False self”. He says that we carry within ourselves a ‘ log' that blocks our true vision of life. We only see our selfish self. People who study personality types call this ‘ ego' . Our ego makes hypocrites of us all. It is good to study our personality types to understand ourselves.

For example, in the course of discovering myself I have recognised that I am a perfectionist and am very time conscious. I have a recorder inside my head and it keeps talking to me. I get angry but do not know how to show anger. I do not know how to relax; my jokes are dead pan humour. I always come across as being serious. I realise this, I try to change. I need humour in my life, I need to lighten up. I need to see that there is other point of views. By doing this I move from false self to true self.

The beginning of self knowledge is our growing awareness of our ego and its entire workings. Without judging or blaming or making excuses for ourselves we need to begin observing our behaviour in different circumstances and to recognise our compulsions and obsessions.

The Ego is a cunning trickster. It tries to hide from us what it is doing. For example: false modesty. “Thank God that I am not like others”. We need a sounding board, either a spiritual director or a good friend. Someone who is interested in us and will not condemn, judge or belittle us but will help us see the log in our eyes. We all carry sin within us and it is an obstacle to prayer.

DISTRACTIONS TO PRAYER

St. Theresa of Avila a doctor of the church and a spiritual director divides distractions into two sections.

a) Involuntary and b) voluntary distractions.

a) Involuntary distractions:

You have prepared yourself to pray. As soon as you begin to pray your mind wanders and you neither asked for it nor find joy in it but the distraction comes. All kinds of distractions, ranging from children to health, church work to what to cook. You keep putting it aside and it keeps coming back.

St Theresa tells us that we need to recognise that there is a distraction and to say to yourself, “I need to attend to it later but right now I want to spend time with the Lord”. So continue your prayer time. Do not shelf it. Complete your prayer.

b) Voluntary distraction :

You are in church and you are praying. You are attracted to a woman's hair style or her clothing or your mind is bored by the homily and it wanders off to the food you are going to eat after mass. This is voluntary distraction, you are aware of what is going on but you do nothing about it and you spend time indulging in that distraction. St Theresa tell us that this is sin.

We have to take in mind that we cannot always pray without distractions but you can do something about minimizing it.

For example, when you go for mass, choose a place where you will be least distracted. Come prepared and say to yourself, “I want to pray, sing and listen to God”. Help each other minimise distractions.

At home choose a time when you will be least distracted and when your mind is fresh. Choose a place where the people in the house know you are praying. These are things we need to do to grow in our prayer life.

LETTING GO

Money and possessions are the most obvious of our attachments. Our possessions include luxuries, comforts and pleasures. There is nothing wrong with these things in themselves. It is our desperate clinging to them that enslaves us. The problem is our inability to let go of these things when we are challenged by the needs of others.

There are a number of other things that we are attached to, such as cleanliness which is a major problem for some. There is a woman whom I know on checking into a hotel checks out the room toilet. If its not clean she would ask for a change of room or check into another hotel.

Some are attached to neatness and order and are obsessed to the point of being insensitive to the feelings of those who are untidy or not orderly . These become 0ur chains. They prevent us from giving ourselves in love.

Other forms of attachment include people, time or reputation. There is also attachment to one's ideas and practices. Meister Eckhart a German Dominican monk of the 15 th . century preached ceaselessly about contemplation and mystical prayer. He urged people to be detached even from contemplation. He uses the image of Martha and Mary. Mary's attachment prevents her from getting up to give Martha a helping hand.

Prayer asks us to let go. This calls for self discipline. It is never easy but it's a joy. Its like giving up an addiction. We feel much better after that.

THE WILLINGNESS TO DIE

True inner freedom calls us to detachment and not to cling onto anything. We recall the paradoxical statement that when we try to save ourselves we lose it. But as soon as we are willing to die we become fully alive and free. The willingness to die to self is the ultimate challenge of detachment. It incorporates all other forms of detachment because it is letting go of our EGO.

Finally there is a difference between attachment and surrender. We do not attach ourselves to God as in clinging to Him but like Jesus we surrender everything to God. In surrender we do not hold tightly to God but are held by God.