On The Importance of Prayer

I recently returned to Italy after spending over a month in the Middle East. Having never been in that corner of the world, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It’s true that some things you can learn from Google, Wikipedia, and maps, but there’s always some aspect that escapes such second-hand reports, no matter how many five-star reviews have been notched or glowing comments have been posted.

For instance, it’s pretty clear to anyone with an elementary knowledge of cartography that the Middle East is mostly desert. No matter how many different ways there are to shade sand or indicate desert on a map, all of them find their way into the visual representation of the region. What maps fail to show, however, is what it’s like to drive in a desert sandstorm. It seems like dusk even though it’s mid-day, and your car’s engine chokes on the sand, much like you and your camel would if you were outside.

I didn’t realize how serious it was until one night, driving back past several check-points and into a sandstorm, instead of sending me on my way with the typical “Welcome” (short for “You’re welcome,” not some sort of backwards greeting), the first patrol told me shakily, “Be careful” and the second, even more ominously, “Good luck.”

Things You Don’t Expect

Some things in the Middle East made me laugh: for instance, in the supermarket you can find camel meat for sale (it tastes sort of like venison), or, when driving down the highway, you find signs that indicate “desert access roads.” Since pretty much every street leads to the desert, or is already in it, it would seem that there’s no need for such roads, but apparently they specify the streets that lead even more into the middle of nowhere, should you be so inclined. I was never so inclined (on the contrary), so the road less travelled was left untraveled.

Likewise, a typical Arabic moniker for a man is habibi, which is roughly equivalent to our word “sir.” Literally it means “my beloved,” but I couldn’t help but notice a certain cold affection (or lack thereof) when security personnel or soldiers would demand paperwork, identification, and the like, starting their requests with “Hey, habibi! Come here – paperwork!” or ending their brusque commands with “Ok, habibi?” I think I would have preferred just “sir,” but that’s beside the point.

Also, Google and Wikipedia will tell you that the majority of the population in the region is Muslim. This is certainly true. The latter has this comment on the adhan, which is “the Islamic call to prayer recited by a muezzin at prescribed times of the day. . . .  The adhan is recited loudly from the mosque five times a day on most days and all day long during the religious holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, traditionally from the minaret.”

To read the description is one thing; to hear it, day in and day out, or, in my case, to experience it for the first time at the airport, early in the morning, as the recorded call to prayer echoes throughout an abandoned airport at daybreak, is something else entirely.

Of course, just like everywhere else in the world, the summons to prayer meets with mixed responses: it was common to see cars pull over to the side of the road at the designated time and to watch the occupants get out, lay out their mats, and recite their prayers. However, the majority simply continued driving, perhaps to pray later, perhaps not at all.

Calls to Prayer

Regardless of theological fine points that can be made, there is something to be said within a culture for such a constant appeal to recall the divine. As the Catechism words it, referencing Acts 17:27, “All religions bear witness to men’s essential search for God” (2566).

I remember reading about a woman who had forsaken her Catholic faith in order to become a Muslim, saying that she found in Islam a more rigid and disciplined system of beliefs and practices. Presumably she had the call to prayer in mind and found it to be a useful reminder to organize her day; perhaps she found Christian prayer to be static and stiff, dispensable, and easily forgotten.

Yet, if that were the case, then perhaps she never really experienced Christian prayer in all its beauty and depth. Although there is no public call to prayer similar to Islamic societies (notwithstanding the traditional Angelus bells), the Catechism (2967) reminds us that prayer is both something constant as well as more intense at certain times:

Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget him who is our life and our all. This is why the Fathers of the spiritual life in the Deuteronomic and prophetic traditions insist that prayer is a remembrance of God often awakened by the memory of the heart: “We must remember God more often than we draw breath.” But we cannot pray “at all times” if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it. These are the special times of Christian prayer, both in intensity and duration.

“We cannot pray ‘at all times’ if we do not pray at specific times”: there is a profound truth contained in those simple words. It is in this light that so many liturgical practices and considerations take on meaning, as the Catechism continues by saying (2698):

The Tradition of the Church proposes to the faithful certain rhythms of praying intended to nourish continual prayer. Some are daily, such as morning and evening prayer, grace before and after meals, the Liturgy of the Hours. Sundays, centered on the Eucharist, are kept holy primarily by prayer. The cycle of the liturgical year and its great feasts are also basic rhythms of the Christian’s life of prayer.

The Heartbeat of the Spiritual Life

Rhythm means life: prayer isn’t just something done at fixed times of the day, but it does need to be done at fixed times with greater intensity. The rhythm of prayer is the heartbeat of the spiritual life; just as physical exercise increases the heart rate, so too does the rhythm of prayer intensify at times.

Rhythm is life: things that are dead don’t move and don’t change. If our prayer life is static, then it’s really not a life of prayer at all. The liturgical calendar, as we retrace the years of salvation history, of God’s pivotal interventions in the life of His chosen people, reminds us that even today, He is at work. Rhythm is life: it pushes us forward, makes us grow, and spurs us on.

The Catechism also mentions the Liturgy of the Hours. The above-mentioned woman might have been astonished by the five daily times of prayer in Islam, but we Catholics also have five canonical hours in what is sometimes called the opus Dei, the “work of God”. It is the prayer of the Church, and, with the recitation of the Psalms and readings from the Bible, it invites us into a relationship with God, which is what prayer is all about.

Types of Prayer

Furthermore, the Catechism also reminds us that prayer has traditionally had three “major expressions: vocal, meditative, and contemplative” (2699). All three are intense moments of communion with God, and help us grow in our relationship with Him and with each other.

Vocal prayer is certainly a legitimate form of prayer and an important one at that, but it is simply one form. It is an important form of prayer but also the simplest. Beyond vocal prayer lies the world of meditative prayer and contemplation, of which so many mystics have written: Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint John of the Cross, and so many others. It is the profound communion with God that can set a person, a family, and a community, aflame with the love of God and with graces and gifts to be shared.

The Road to Abundant Life

Just like the desert map, however, prayer is not something simply to be studied, but rather to be lived. The Catechism, too, makes this clear: it is not enough “to know what the Scriptures reveal about prayer: one must also learn how to pray” (2650).

Starting with praying at a certain time is good, even necessary, but ultimately it is only through first-hand experience that one can really learn what prayer is about, and to have that “abundant life” that our Lord came to bring (cf. John 10:10). As happens in so many other things, Google and Wikipedia fall short: some things simply must be lived and experienced directly, and prayer is certainly one of them.