Sunday, December 18, 2005
Sermons and Lessons
INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTHOR
Jean-Nicholas Grou lived in France and Holland. He was a Jesuit priest who entered into a deeper life with God on a retreat in 1767 where he learned to live his life in the spirit of prayer and complete abandon to God's will. He spent most of his time writing and speaking on the subject of spiritual growth, particularly the practice of prayer.
The following passage comes from his famous work How to Pray. In it he urges us to look to God alone to teach us to pray. Grou calls us to abandon our many methods and focus upon the object of our prayer: God. Many times we struggle in prayer because our focus is on the act of praying, i.e., the proper methods, formulae, and words. Grou teaches us to pray in spirit and in truth- by letting our hearts, not our lips, do most of our praying. His writing is simple and precise, yet full of enthusiasm and warmth. When reading Grou one feels the presence of God in his words.
EXCERPTS FROM HOW TO PRAY
1. God Alone Teaches Us to Pray
One day the disciples said to Jesus Christ: "Lord, teach us to pray." It was the Holy Spirit who inspired them to make this request. The Holy Spirit convinced them of their inability to pray in their own strength, and he moved their hearts to draw near to Jesus Christ as the only Master who could teach them how they ought to pray It was then that Jesus taught them the Lord?s Prayer.
There is no Christian who is not in the same case as the disciples. Every Christian ought to say to the Savior as humbly as they: "Lord, teach us to pray." Ah! if we were only convinced of our ignorance and of our need of a Teacher like Jesus Christ! If we would only approach him with confidence, asking him to teach us himself and desiring to be taught by his grace how to converse with God! How soon we should be skilled in it and how many of its secrets we should discover! Do not let us say that we know how to pray the prayer they learned from him. We may know the words, but without grace we cannot understand the meaning and we cannot ask or receive what it expresses.
2. Who Prevents Us?
Who prevents us from receiving the gift of prayer? Can we doubt that Jesus Christ is willing to give it to us? But do we desire it? Do we ask it? Do we think we need it? How many Christians do not even know what it is? And how many others instead of desiring it are afraid of it because it would commit them to a new way of life?
We know by heart a few forms of prayer. We find others to choose from in books. This is where many people stop, and when they have read these or recited them by heart, they imagine that nothing else is required. How grievously we deceive ourselves! With all these forms, however beautiful the sentiments expressed, we do not know how to pray. Perhaps we are praying in our own way, but we are not praying in God's way Where is the woman whose chief prayer is to ask God to teach her how to pray?
God must teach us everything concerning the nature of prayer: its object, its characteristics, the disposition it requires, and the personal application we must make of it according to our needs. In the matter of prayer we are as ignorant of the theory as of the practice.
3. A Supernatural Act
We know in general that prayer is a religious act, but when it comes to praying we easily forget that it is a supernatural act which is therefore beyond our own strength and can only be performed by the inspiration and help of grace. As St. Paul says: "Not that we are competent to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God" (2 Cor. 3:5, NIV).
Do we have the feeling of our own insufficiency in our mind and in our heart? Are we conscious of it when we place ourselves in God's presence? Do we begin our prayers with this secret confession? I am not saying that we -~ must always vocally ask God's help, but such a request ought to be in our hearts and such an attitude should govern the whole course of our prayer.
But if we are to look for everything from God, all our good thoughts and feelings how is it that we are often so dull and indifferent, satisfied to say our prayers coldly and without any preparation? Why do others try so hard to inflame their imagination as if prayer depended on their own efforts, as if it were not necessary that God's action should govern and direct their prayer? Since prayer is a supernatural act, we must earnestly ask God to produce it in us, and then we must perform it tranquilly under his guidance. We must draw down divine grace by our favor and then we must cooperate with it without interfering with its effects. If God does not teach us, we shall never know thoroughly the nature of prayer.
4. A Wholly Spiritual Act
"God is a Spirit," said Jesus, "and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24, KJV). Prayer, then, is a wholly spiritual act, addressed to God who is the Supreme Spirit, the Spirit who sees all things and is present in all things. As St. Augustine says, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Knowing this is the essence of prayer. The posture of our body and the words we use have no significance in themselves and are only pleasing to God as they express the feelings of the heart. For it is the heart that prays, it is to the voice of the heart that God listens, and it is the heart that he answers. When we speak of the heart, we mean the most spiritual part of us. In the Scriptures, prayer is always ascribed to the heart, for it is the heart that God teaches and it is through the heart that he enlightens the mind.
5. From the Heart
If this is true, why do we pray so much with our lips and so little with our heart? Why in meditation do we work so hard in the search for considerations and use our wills so little to move them to acts of affections? Why do we not lay open our heart to God and beg him to put into it whatever is most pleasing to him? Who could call it a bad method if it springs from humility, from a deep sense of our own inability, and from a lively faith and trust in God? Such is the method suggested by the Holy Spirit to those souls who ask him to teach them how to pray
"But my heart says nothing to me when I am in the presence of God," you say. "In the silence I find nothing but emptiness, dryness, distractions. If I try to fix my mind, to arouse in myself some feelings of devotion, to drive off distracting thoughts, it is absolutely essential for me to use a prayer book." Your heart says nothing?! In so far as it is silent, you are not praying at all, but is it any less so when your mouth is uttering words? Do you not see that these fine feelings you borrow from books only affect your imagination? They are not your words, but someone else's, and they become yours only for the moment that you are reading them; once the book is closed, you are as dry and as cold as you were before. "Nevertheless," you say "I was praying while I was reciting or reading that set of words." So you think and you are satisfied, but is that God's point of view? Is God equally satisfied? What do your words matter to him, to him who only listens to the heart?
6. The Voice of the Heart
You ask me what this voice of the heart is. It is love which is the voice of the heart. Love God and you will always be speaking to him. The seed of love is growth in prayer. If you do not understand that, you have never yet either loved or prayed. Ask God to open your heart and kindle in it a spark of his love, and then you will begin to understand what praying means.
If it is the heart that prays, it is evident that sometimes, and even continuously it can pray by itself without any help from words, spoken or conceived. Here is something which few people understand and which some even entirely deny They insist that there must be definite and formal acts. They are mistaken, and God has not yet taught them how the heart prays. It is true that thoughts are formed in the mind before they are clothed in words. The proof of this is that we often search for the right word and reject one after another until we find the right one which expresses our thoughts accurately We need words to make ourselves intelligible to other people but not to the Spirit. It is the same with the feelings of the heart. The heart conceives feelings and adopts them without any need of resorting to words unless it wishes to communicate them to others or to make them clear to itself.
For God reads the secrets of the heart. God reads its most intimate feelings, even those which we are not aware of. And if these are feelings about God, how could he fail to see them, since it is God who plants them in us by his grace and helps our will to adopt them? It is not necessary to make use of formal acts to make ourselves heard by God. If we do make use of them in prayer, it is not so much for God?s sake as our own in that they help us to keep our attention fixed in his presence. Our weakness often calls for the help of such acts, but they are not of the essence of prayer.
7. The Prayer of Silence
Imagine a soul so closely united to God that it has no need of outward acts to remain attentive to the inward prayer. In these moments of silence and peace when it pays no heed to what is happening within itself, it prays and prays excellently, with a simple and direct prayer that God will understand perfectly by the action of grace. The heart will be full of aspirations towards God without any clear expression. Though they may elude our own consciousness, they will not escape the consciousness of God. This prayer, so empty of all images and perceptions, apparently so passive and yet so active, is, so far as the limitations of this life allow, pure adoration in spirit and in truth. It is adoration fully worthy of God in which the soul is united to him as its ground, the created intelligence to the uncreated, without anything but a very simple attention of the mind and an equally simple application of the will. This is what is called the prayer of silence, or of quiet, or of bare faith.
8. God Is Teaching Your Heart
If you feel any attraction for the simple and general prayer of which I have been speaking, do not reject it on the excuse that it has no definite aim and that you rise from your knees without having asked for anything. Let me say it again, you are mistaken. In reality, you have asked for everything, both for yourself and for those whom you love, and far more effectually than if you had made the detailed requests whose many words would only have exhausted you and hindered the action of God.
After this brief explanation, you must see that you have not until now understood what prayer really is. If, after reading this you are beginning to have a new understanding of prayer, thank God for it; for it is he who is teaching your heart and what I am writing here for your instruction comes from him.
Jean-Nicholas Grou lived in France and Holland. He was a Jesuit priest who entered into a deeper life with God on a retreat in 1767 where he learned to live his life in the spirit of prayer and complete abandon to God's will. He spent most of his time writing and speaking on the subject of spiritual growth, particularly the practice of prayer.
The following passage comes from his famous work How to Pray. In it he urges us to look to God alone to teach us to pray. Grou calls us to abandon our many methods and focus upon the object of our prayer: God. Many times we struggle in prayer because our focus is on the act of praying, i.e., the proper methods, formulae, and words. Grou teaches us to pray in spirit and in truth- by letting our hearts, not our lips, do most of our praying. His writing is simple and precise, yet full of enthusiasm and warmth. When reading Grou one feels the presence of God in his words.
EXCERPTS FROM HOW TO PRAY
1. God Alone Teaches Us to Pray
One day the disciples said to Jesus Christ: "Lord, teach us to pray." It was the Holy Spirit who inspired them to make this request. The Holy Spirit convinced them of their inability to pray in their own strength, and he moved their hearts to draw near to Jesus Christ as the only Master who could teach them how they ought to pray It was then that Jesus taught them the Lord?s Prayer.
There is no Christian who is not in the same case as the disciples. Every Christian ought to say to the Savior as humbly as they: "Lord, teach us to pray." Ah! if we were only convinced of our ignorance and of our need of a Teacher like Jesus Christ! If we would only approach him with confidence, asking him to teach us himself and desiring to be taught by his grace how to converse with God! How soon we should be skilled in it and how many of its secrets we should discover! Do not let us say that we know how to pray the prayer they learned from him. We may know the words, but without grace we cannot understand the meaning and we cannot ask or receive what it expresses.
2. Who Prevents Us?
Who prevents us from receiving the gift of prayer? Can we doubt that Jesus Christ is willing to give it to us? But do we desire it? Do we ask it? Do we think we need it? How many Christians do not even know what it is? And how many others instead of desiring it are afraid of it because it would commit them to a new way of life?
We know by heart a few forms of prayer. We find others to choose from in books. This is where many people stop, and when they have read these or recited them by heart, they imagine that nothing else is required. How grievously we deceive ourselves! With all these forms, however beautiful the sentiments expressed, we do not know how to pray. Perhaps we are praying in our own way, but we are not praying in God's way Where is the woman whose chief prayer is to ask God to teach her how to pray?
God must teach us everything concerning the nature of prayer: its object, its characteristics, the disposition it requires, and the personal application we must make of it according to our needs. In the matter of prayer we are as ignorant of the theory as of the practice.
3. A Supernatural Act
We know in general that prayer is a religious act, but when it comes to praying we easily forget that it is a supernatural act which is therefore beyond our own strength and can only be performed by the inspiration and help of grace. As St. Paul says: "Not that we are competent to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God" (2 Cor. 3:5, NIV).
Do we have the feeling of our own insufficiency in our mind and in our heart? Are we conscious of it when we place ourselves in God's presence? Do we begin our prayers with this secret confession? I am not saying that we -~ must always vocally ask God's help, but such a request ought to be in our hearts and such an attitude should govern the whole course of our prayer.
But if we are to look for everything from God, all our good thoughts and feelings how is it that we are often so dull and indifferent, satisfied to say our prayers coldly and without any preparation? Why do others try so hard to inflame their imagination as if prayer depended on their own efforts, as if it were not necessary that God's action should govern and direct their prayer? Since prayer is a supernatural act, we must earnestly ask God to produce it in us, and then we must perform it tranquilly under his guidance. We must draw down divine grace by our favor and then we must cooperate with it without interfering with its effects. If God does not teach us, we shall never know thoroughly the nature of prayer.
4. A Wholly Spiritual Act
"God is a Spirit," said Jesus, "and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24, KJV). Prayer, then, is a wholly spiritual act, addressed to God who is the Supreme Spirit, the Spirit who sees all things and is present in all things. As St. Augustine says, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Knowing this is the essence of prayer. The posture of our body and the words we use have no significance in themselves and are only pleasing to God as they express the feelings of the heart. For it is the heart that prays, it is to the voice of the heart that God listens, and it is the heart that he answers. When we speak of the heart, we mean the most spiritual part of us. In the Scriptures, prayer is always ascribed to the heart, for it is the heart that God teaches and it is through the heart that he enlightens the mind.
5. From the Heart
If this is true, why do we pray so much with our lips and so little with our heart? Why in meditation do we work so hard in the search for considerations and use our wills so little to move them to acts of affections? Why do we not lay open our heart to God and beg him to put into it whatever is most pleasing to him? Who could call it a bad method if it springs from humility, from a deep sense of our own inability, and from a lively faith and trust in God? Such is the method suggested by the Holy Spirit to those souls who ask him to teach them how to pray
"But my heart says nothing to me when I am in the presence of God," you say. "In the silence I find nothing but emptiness, dryness, distractions. If I try to fix my mind, to arouse in myself some feelings of devotion, to drive off distracting thoughts, it is absolutely essential for me to use a prayer book." Your heart says nothing?! In so far as it is silent, you are not praying at all, but is it any less so when your mouth is uttering words? Do you not see that these fine feelings you borrow from books only affect your imagination? They are not your words, but someone else's, and they become yours only for the moment that you are reading them; once the book is closed, you are as dry and as cold as you were before. "Nevertheless," you say "I was praying while I was reciting or reading that set of words." So you think and you are satisfied, but is that God's point of view? Is God equally satisfied? What do your words matter to him, to him who only listens to the heart?
6. The Voice of the Heart
You ask me what this voice of the heart is. It is love which is the voice of the heart. Love God and you will always be speaking to him. The seed of love is growth in prayer. If you do not understand that, you have never yet either loved or prayed. Ask God to open your heart and kindle in it a spark of his love, and then you will begin to understand what praying means.
If it is the heart that prays, it is evident that sometimes, and even continuously it can pray by itself without any help from words, spoken or conceived. Here is something which few people understand and which some even entirely deny They insist that there must be definite and formal acts. They are mistaken, and God has not yet taught them how the heart prays. It is true that thoughts are formed in the mind before they are clothed in words. The proof of this is that we often search for the right word and reject one after another until we find the right one which expresses our thoughts accurately We need words to make ourselves intelligible to other people but not to the Spirit. It is the same with the feelings of the heart. The heart conceives feelings and adopts them without any need of resorting to words unless it wishes to communicate them to others or to make them clear to itself.
For God reads the secrets of the heart. God reads its most intimate feelings, even those which we are not aware of. And if these are feelings about God, how could he fail to see them, since it is God who plants them in us by his grace and helps our will to adopt them? It is not necessary to make use of formal acts to make ourselves heard by God. If we do make use of them in prayer, it is not so much for God?s sake as our own in that they help us to keep our attention fixed in his presence. Our weakness often calls for the help of such acts, but they are not of the essence of prayer.
7. The Prayer of Silence
Imagine a soul so closely united to God that it has no need of outward acts to remain attentive to the inward prayer. In these moments of silence and peace when it pays no heed to what is happening within itself, it prays and prays excellently, with a simple and direct prayer that God will understand perfectly by the action of grace. The heart will be full of aspirations towards God without any clear expression. Though they may elude our own consciousness, they will not escape the consciousness of God. This prayer, so empty of all images and perceptions, apparently so passive and yet so active, is, so far as the limitations of this life allow, pure adoration in spirit and in truth. It is adoration fully worthy of God in which the soul is united to him as its ground, the created intelligence to the uncreated, without anything but a very simple attention of the mind and an equally simple application of the will. This is what is called the prayer of silence, or of quiet, or of bare faith.
8. God Is Teaching Your Heart
If you feel any attraction for the simple and general prayer of which I have been speaking, do not reject it on the excuse that it has no definite aim and that you rise from your knees without having asked for anything. Let me say it again, you are mistaken. In reality, you have asked for everything, both for yourself and for those whom you love, and far more effectually than if you had made the detailed requests whose many words would only have exhausted you and hindered the action of God.
After this brief explanation, you must see that you have not until now understood what prayer really is. If, after reading this you are beginning to have a new understanding of prayer, thank God for it; for it is he who is teaching your heart and what I am writing here for your instruction comes from him.
