Next: The Degrees of Prayer Up: Prayer Previous: Prayer Contents
“Pray without ceasing,”22.53 insists St. Paul, for prayer is at the same time the source and the most intimate form of our life. “When thou prayest, go into thy room, and closing the door, pray to thy Father in secret.”22.54 This means to enter into yourself and make a sanctuary there; the secret place is the human heart. The life of prayer, its intensity, its depth, its rhythm are a measure of our spiritual health and reveal ourselves to ourselves.
“Rising up long before daybreak, he went out and departed into a desert place, and there he prayed.”22.55 With the ascetics, “the desert” is interiorized and signifies the concentration of a recollected and silent spirit. At this level, where man knows how to be silent, true prayer is found; here he is mysteriously visited. Paul Claudel notes that the Word is the adopted son of silence, for St. Joseph passes through the pages of the Gospel without uttering a single word. To hear the voice of the Word, we must know how to listen to his silence, and above all, to learn it ourselves. Speaking from experience, the spiritual masters are categorical: if one does not know how to give a place in his life to recollection and silence, it is impossible for him to arrive at a higher degree and to be able to pray in public places. This degree makes us aware that one part of us, being immersed in what is immediate, is always worried and distracted, and that the other part observes this with astonishment and compassion. A man too busy with many things would make the angels laugh, if they could do so, Shakespeare remarks.22.56
The water that quenches thirst is distilled in the silence that offers us the indispensable withdrawal to view ourselves in the right perspective.
Recollection opens our soul to heaven, but also to other men. St, Seraphim states admirably: the contemplative life or the active life--this problem is somewhat artificial; this is not the problem; the real problem is that of the heart's dimension. Is the vast jewel case, of which Origen speaks, capable of containing God and all men? If so, St. Seraphim says: “Acquire interior peace, and a multitude of men will find their salvation near you.”22.57
There are evident realities in the world, the kingdom, for example, and there are symbols also. “The kingdom of heaven is like...”, and then comes the idea, the theory, which is a certain impoverishment. That is why poetry, and even more, prayer, is nearer truth than is prose. Lao-tse used to say that if he had absolute power, he would before all else reestablish the initial poetic meaning of words. In this present time of verbal inflation that only aggravates loneliness, only the man of prayerful peace can still speak to others, and show them the word become a face and a look become a presence. His silence will speak where no preaching can reach; his mystery will make others attentive to a revelation that has now become close and accessible to them. Even when he who knows silence speaks, he easily finds the unsullied freshness of every word. His answer to questions of life and death comes as the amen to his perpetual prayer.
St. Teresa used to say: “To pray means to treat God like a friend.” The “friend of the bridegroom... stands and hears him”.22.58 The essence of the state of prayer is to hear the voice of another, that of Christ, but likewise that of the person I meet, in whom Christ addresses me. His voice comes to me in every human voice; his face is multiple: it is that of the wayfarer to Emmaus, of Mary Magdalen's gardener, of my next-door neighbor. God became incarnate so that man ma y contemplate his face through every face. Perfect prayer seeks the presence of Christ and recognizes it in every human being. The unique image of Christ is the icon, but they are innumerable, and this means that every human face is also the icon of Christ. A prayerful attitude discovers it.