Mother Mary Clare’s Four Obstacles to Prayer

If you’re anything like me, you struggle in prayer.

And not struggle in the sense of just trying to find the time. The struggle is that even when you show up and do everything right in prayer, it still seems distracted or that you’re getting nowhere.

I should clarify: the kind of prayer we are talking about here is daily prayer with the Lord, in silence, which many authors have referred to as contemplative prayer. And to be painfully clear on this point, I believe that this contemplative prayer is an incontrovertible part of the life of a disciple. Nothing else will do.

As Christ Himself would rise early in the morning and go to a deserted place to pray (Mark 1:35), the disciple must make time to seek the Lord in prayer. We are told by St. Paul to “rejoice always, and pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17), but the Catechism of the Catholic Church adds that “we cannot pray ‘at all times’ if we don’t pray at specific times, consciously willing it” (CCC, 2697). Further, “one makes time for the Lord, with the firm determination not to give up, no matter what trials and dryness one may encounter” (CCC, 2709).

Becoming Aware of Obstacles

Several years ago, I was at a Catholic conference where the Mother Superior of the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus, Mother Mary Clare, was giving a talk on obstacles to prayer. I have gone back to those notes many times in order to discern what exactly seems to be the obstacle I am dealing with in prayer.

I am deeply indebted to her witness and to her faithfulness to the Lord, and I cannot help but share her reflections on obstacles to prayer. I hope that they can help you, dear reader, as much as they have helped me over the years.

First Obstacle: Sin

It is difficult to live a prayerful relationship with God if one has willfully chosen to live or act in opposition to Him. We can understand sin in many ways, but in the context of prayer, a willfully-committed mortal sin breaks our relationship with God: “Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it,” says the Catechism (CCC, 1850).

This is all too evident in the first experience of sin in the Garden of Eden: after Adam and Eve realize what they have done, they turn and attempt to hide from the Lord. They recognize that their actions have directly harmed their relationship with God, and rather than running to Him for mercy, they run away from Him in shame.

Mother Mary Clare really hammered this point home in her talk: all sins harm our relationship with the Father; they both stem from and lead to a lack of trust in Him. Sins make us uncomfortable in His presence and foster a desire to hide from Him.

She recommended two ways of dealing with this first obstacle of sin:

First, we must let ourselves be reconciled to the Lord, through an honest confession. Here, she stressed that we should make a good confession in the context of relationship, rather than just reading off a laundry-list of faults. Ask the Lord in prayer how you have fallen short in the relationship, and He will mercifully let you know.

Second, we must find good accountability in our lives, especially if we have serious habitual sins. She recommends finding a good small group (e.g. men’s group, women’s group) or a regular confessor who knows your situation and can speak into it. Without such things in place, it is all too easy to stagnate in this area.

Second Obstacle: Our Own Thoughts

This obstacle can be fairly tricky to understand, but a good place to begin is in Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (55:8). Mother Mary Clare explained that it can be far too easy to drift into a monologue in mental prayer rather than relate our thoughts to the Lord.

It may be that you are letting your mind wander off to the to-do list or to the most recent show you watched. Or, you might have decided to “pray about something” in general, but that just means thinking about it while in chapel. As I can personally attest, it is all too easy to pass an entire time of prayer just listening to my own thoughts.

Mother Mary Clare recommended two things to counteract this challenge:

First, in moments of distraction, gently lead yourself back to the Lord’s presence. It doesn’t do you any good to beat yourself up for getting distracted; rather we must lead ourselves back to prayer each time. If this is a significant issue for you, I recommend reading Time for God by Fr. Jacques Phillipe, who writes extensively on this topic.

Second, if there is a situation or a subject that is weighing on your mind, bring it to the Lord as often as it weighs upon you. Continually ask Him: “Lord, how do you see this?” and then grant Him the silence and the space to answer.

Third Obstacle: Our Emotions

This obstacle can also be tricky to overcome, but Mother stressed an important fact to keep in mind: that emotions are a good thing, given to us by God. Attempting to deny or suppress our emotions is unhealthy on both a human and a spiritual level. However, all good things must be held in their proper place, and emotions, if given free reign, would lead to all sorts of problems. In our prayer, they can distract us from the Lord and from what He wants to say to us.

In order to overcome this obstacle, she recommended this: love is an act of the will, and so at the start of each dedicated time of prayer, we ought to spend a minute or two “taking the pulse” of our current emotional state and bringing each emotion to the Lord and surrendering them to Him in love.

Our Lord Himself took on human flesh, including the emotional life and human affectivity, and so, in times of great sorrow it can be helpful to contemplate our Lord weeping at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11). In times of great joy, it is good to contemplate our Lord rejoicing at the work of the disciples (Luke 10:21). For more on this topic, I recommend reading The Heart by Dietrich von Hildebrand, who dives into an examination of the emotions and affectivity of Christ and what it means for us as His disciples.

Fourth Obstacle: Desolation

 This obstacle, defined and discussed extensively by St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises, can be daunting at first sight, often coaxing out dramatic images of St. John of the Cross and his “dark night of the soul”. However, a mature disciple would do well to understand this obstacle because if you are unaware of a desolation that has been plaguing you, it can own you, having massive effects on your spiritual life and the hope you have in Christ.

Spiritual desolation, if not acknowledged, can lead to a heaviness of heart and near despair for the things of God. Mother Mary Clare said that a great way to recognize spiritual desolation is to see if there have been “universal negatives” in your thoughts (e.g. “I’ll never be free of this,” or “God will never love me”, etc.).

She recommended doing more research into the nature of spiritual desolation and consolation by reading the works of St. Ignatius or a contemporary author with a good understanding of the saint’s writings. (I recommend Fr. Timothy Gallagher’s book The Discernment of Spirits.)

Additionally, she suggests a daily examination of conscience that touches upon desolation and consolation, as well as finding ways to surround yourself with the Word of God (e.g. praying Liturgy of the Hours, daily Scripture reading, etc.), in order to let the voice of the Lord into your mind and your heart more often.

Living Beyond the Obstacles

At that conference, Mother Mary Clare was not pulling any punches. Her words convicted me, as they still do today. She said “a faithful disciple prays every day in silence, and a mature disciple is not crippled by obstacles in prayer. These obstacles should not frighten you but should lead you closer to the throne of God in prayer with the accompaniment of our Blessed Mother.”

St. Paul told Timothy that we are not made for a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7), so we should not be afraid of obstacles. Rather, we should come to the Lord and in the context of our relationship with Him, ask for the light of the Holy Spirit to show us where we need to grow.

I pray that the Lord may give you insight in overcoming whatever obstacles you might face so that you “may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).