Prayer of the Heart on a Summer Sunday

Last week Father John Grou taught us that we don't need to say much when we pray. He wrote much on this Prayer of the Heart. His words were consistent with our focus on keeping our prayer simple. 

Sunday should, of course, find us focused on prayer, especially if we find it hard - for some reason - to focus much during the week. The added focus fits right in with Sunday being The Lord's Day. 

Not that praying precludes or excludes any other activity. Enjoying the respite from our work and domestic chores comes with our Sunday observance. Prayer and enjoying such respite don't contradict each other.

The simplicity of prayer we've been discussing on recent Sundays helps tremendously. We don't have to block out huge chunks of time if we keep prayer simple. And it was Our Lord Himself Who directed us not to pray with many words, as Father Grou explained last week. Indeed, the words aren't really even needed. The Lord knows our heart. Hence the concept of Prayer of the Heart.

More from Father Grou:

"It is not words that He answers, but the purity of the man’s intentions and the disposition of his heart.

“When a child with even the least glimmer of reason asks something of his father, knowing that he is dearly loved by him, is he not content to express his wish, and, having done so, to rely on his father’s kindness? Does he think he will obtain nothing unless he importunes him and teases him without ceasing? It would be very wrong of him to act thus; he would deserve to be told that he is wanting of respect for his father. We who are Christians, we who are the children of God ought to treat our heavenly Father at least as well as we treat our earthly parents. A child hardly thinks at all of his own needs; his parents care for him and think of everything that concerns him. Are God’s care and tenderness not as great as theirs? Is it right that, seeing we have such a Father, we should be anxious about His care for us? Earthly fathers would feel themselves wronged by such anxiety in their children. Why should not God feel equally wronged?”

So with few words - or even none at all - we can pray and He will understand all. Just remember it's not the paucity of words, but the intention behind them and the disposition of our hearts.

But before we conclude that short and sweet is the point here, Father expands on this. He tells us something we should already know: We should pray "without ceasing." Jesus Himself taught us this. 

Is there a contradiction here? No. The simplicity of prayer, the lack of many words stands. Just read Father's words and we'll see how all this sorts out:

 “Do not conclude that, because you must not use many words when praying, your prayers ought therefore to be short. Nothing is further from the intention of Jesus Christ, who in another place bids us pray always, without ceasing. It is vocal prayers He does not wish us to multiply, especially when they are for the same object. But the prayer of the heart, which is true prayer, cannot possibly continue too long, and God never tires of it. If we are observant and reason correctly, this advice which Our Lord here gives us is an invitation to the prayer of quiet, or silent prayer. Having simply expressed our wants, in words if we prefer it, he would have us be silent and allow our hearts to speak. It speaks far more eloquently than our lips. Do not tell me that you only pray with the heart when your lips say the words, and that the moment your mouth is silent you become idle and inattentive. If such were the case you would not be praying with your heart even while your mouth prayed; you would only be following the words with your mind, and feeling would have no part in your prayer. The heart, when it prays, often inclines and even forces the mouth to be silent; and if this silence in God’s presence be an unknown experience to you, there is no injustice in applying to you the words of the prophet: ‘This people honoreth Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.’

“The reason our Blessed Lord gives for withdrawing us from the multiplicity of words in praying is to lead us to silent prayer. He says: Your Father knoweth what is needful for you before you ask Him. He does not require your words to know what you want. Yet elsewhere He lays it on you as a duty to pray to Him, and pray without ceasing. So it is silent and wholly interior prayer that He expects from you continually, and He only accepts others for the sake of this. How much then are we to be pitied if we do not know what is meant by interior prayer and if we make no use of it! It does not follow from the reason put forward by Jesus Christ that we should never speak at all to God, because He knows beforehand what our needs are. It simply means that we do not instruct Him when we speak, and that it is for other reasons that He requires our prayers, whether vocal or mental.”

The key is interior prayer. For this we need a strong, mature interior life. We've talked about the interior life many times. It's the center of our spiritual life. Without it, we run the danger of being superficial, even praying like the heathens(!). 

Sunday, even a summer Sunday, affords us peaceful time to think about all this. It affords us the time to work on developing our interior life.

If not Sunday, then when?

Happy Sunday!