Understanding Trials and the Role of Prayer in Spiritual Growth

What is prayer and, more importantly, what do we become by engaging in prayer? So often we take a reductive view of the realities in our life, including the reality of our relationship with God. We reduce our converse with God to a discipline or an afterthought or worse and obligation. And yet as we read the fathers, we begin to see with greater clarity that prayer involves a kind of mutual vulnerability. We stand before the Other, God, withholding nothing of ourselves from him. In this, we imitate Him who has revealed himself to us in the most vulnerable fashion. He has drawn back the veil and revealed his heart to us and the depth of his love and compassion. 

Such a vision of prayer precludes are treating it in a common fashion; approaching it like we would any other interaction. However, what we are drawn into from the moment of our baptism is the very life of God, a participation in the life of the most holy Trinity. Prayer, then, becomes an expression of identity, of who we are as human beings and what we’ve become in Christ. Seen in such a manner, an unquenchable thirst should arise within the human heart to remain in prayer and prolong it. One desires to linger long with the Beloved. It is to choose the better part. So much of what we learn, and our taught leads only to the fragmentation of the self. The frenetic pace of life and the desperate pursuit to satisfy expectations that we have for ourselves or that others place upon us distorts who we really are. We are sons and daughters of God, heir to the kingdom of heaven, and the Spirit that dwells within the heart alone gives us the capacity to express the love God Himself has for us.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:14:45 Bob Cihak, AZ: P. 237, #34   00:38:13 Callie Eisenbrandt: Father how do we learn something everyday in prayer in times of spiritual dryness? Sometimes it feels like its difficult to see what you are to learn until you look back on prayers from the past but how do you do that on a daily basis?   00:39:51 Wayne: late what page are we on?   00:41:07 Bob Cihak, AZ: p. 238, #38 or so.   00:41:35 Wayne: thnx   00:42:41 Christian Corulli: I think it would ruin the prayer if we did understand the points of dryness   00:53:39 Victor: Parental bragging rights enhanced by need for non-ending FB posts. Good points. Let kids play. “Leisure, the basis of culture”.   00:53:44 Alan Henderson: Father, on this point about children, what are your thoughts about finding a balance between - letting children have the play time as you mention, and finding them hobbies/activities that they can enjoy (and spend time with friends).  I agree with you that this is a major concern in how we are shaping our kids.   00:55:50 Leilani Nemeroff: If I had it to do over, as a parent, I wouldn’t have felt obligated to run to so many activities.   00:56:06 Wayne: Reacted to "If I had it to do ov..." with 👍   00:58:07 Leilani Nemeroff: There needs to be time for more free play.   00:58:56 Victor: Playing cops & robbers as a kid helped me to warn community when gunman was outside our liturgy back in 70s. Also to help generate strategy when a priest & I were chased by robbers in Africa once.   00:59:55 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Playing cops & robbe..." with 😮   01:00:10 Ashley Kaschl: Reacted to "Playing cops & robbe…" with 😮   01:02:03 Ashley Kaschl: Father, I don’t want to totally change the topic away from good leisure and play, which is so good, but I was thinking about what you said in regards to busying ourselves or adding to our lives when we don’t need to add, and it brought to mind two quotes:
 the first is a monk’s reflection on his need to leave his cell for begging. He said, “Every time I leave my cell, I return less myself.” 
 And the second is from St. Francis of Assisi, when he would daily pray, “who are You, Lord, and who am I?”  
 I think work properly related to our state in life is meant to be shaped around our prayer time, not our prayer time shaped around our extracurricular activities. I know I fail in this all the time but I find that I have to often reorient myself when I approach prayer because I have to shed burdens I did not know I picked up to carry before I can be with the Lord in a deeper intimacy.   01:03:42 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Father, I don’t want..." with 🥰   01:05:47 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: I have come to realize that sane and holy life requires quiet time for prayer but also quiet time for psychological wholeness.  Time to sort things out...   01:13:07 susan: learned so much!!   01:13:13 Victor: Thanks, Father & everyone.   01:13:17 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you🙂   01:13:29 Jeff O.: Thank you!