Why Do People Think They Don’t Know How To Pray?

Our parish Chaplain delivered an interesting observation while talking about an upcoming Saturday event on prayer.  It was insightful.

“I don’t know why people think they don’t know how to pray,” our chaplain said, “but every time we have a prayer class or special program the attendance is always really good.” Thinking about the different programs I have attended in various parishes over the years, I think she is right. Turnout always seems better than usual when the topic is how to pray.

At the simplest level, I think it may be not so much that people think they don’t know how to pray as it is that people tend to have a nagging feeling that they do not pray well. Of course, many people feel that they do not pray really as often as they should, or as effectively as they would like. And that may, in some cases, be at the heart of it.

Prayer Resources Are Nearly Innumerable

Saying “prayer resources are nearly innumerable” is fun, but Google actually gives us some numbers. A search on “how to pray” yields 1,060,000,000 results, and on just “prayer” there are 845,000,000.  When I narrow the search to “how to pray for Catholics” Google only returns 11,600,000 results. For something that people don’t seem to know how to do, there are plenty of people willing to give advice!

Humor aside, these numbers are what we might expect to find on a topic of such overriding interest.  Writers want to write about what people want to read (including me).

Prayer Is Our Primary Method Of Connecting To God

It is no surprise that people are interested in prayer because it is how we connect to God. During prayer we offer our time, our hearts, our minds, and our spirit up to the Lord.  During prayer we open ourselves to hear God.

So with all this primacy, this interest, and these resources, how is it that our parish chaplain’s question still resonates?  Why do people think they do not know how to pray?

Sometimes We Don’t Hear (Or Get) What We Want

I think the number of prayer resources speaks to the reality that people either think they do not know how to pray, or that they feel a need to learn to pray better than they do, but it still begs the question of why we feel that way.  It occurs to me that it may be because we are not getting the response we hope for when we pray.

There is a passage in Huckleberry Finn where he reflects on the lessons he is getting in prayer.  He is disappointed because he prayed for fishhooks and didn’t get them. When he mentions this to Miss Watson he is told he is a fool without an explanation of why. Later he talks to Widow Douglas and is told he needs to pray for spiritual gifts.

Of course Miss Watson’s response is just plain rude, but I think Widow Douglas’s is also incomplete at best. Huckleberry’s naïve analysis focuses on material answers to prayer, and the Widow Douglas tries to move him beyond that toward other goals. But we are, after all, encouraged to pray about all things, including material things.  The Lord’s Prayer specifically mentions our daily bread. 

What’s Wrong With Praying For Fishhooks?

Nothing is wrong with praying for fishhooks, if it is done with awareness and a sense of reality. The problem comes from magical thinking and/or a limited understanding of how God can answer prayers.

Magical thinking is what we are encouraged to think Huck Finn is indulging in when he prays for fishhooks:

“Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks.  It warn’t any good to me without hooks.  I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. “  (Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 3)

A somewhat greater awareness might have led Huck to notice a sign in a shop window advertising for a boy to run errands. With a job he could earn the money to buy the fishhooks. Even better, he might reflect that he has already been abundantly provided with money he needs to buy all the fishhooks he might ever want! So prayer is not really necessary or appropriate (except for a prayer of gratitude for the fortune he and Tom Sawyer split in the earlier novel).

Admittedly, Huckleberry Finn is a novel and not a course in prayer or spiritual awareness. But it does illustrate a common problem in prayer expectations – we ought to be able to pray for anything.

Faith the size of a mustard seed

In Luke we read “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to [this] mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” [Luke 17:6].   And of course in Mark, Jesus illustrates his point with a mountain!

To temper this, we have to consider what we read in Matthew: “Again, [amen,] I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father” [MT 20: 19].

In the case of the verses in Luke, we must remember that Jesus is talking to the Apostles, the people he saw as capable of the most spiritual maturity to carry on his teachings after his Resurrection and Ascension. How likely is it that spiritually mature people will pray to uproot a mountain or find a box of fishhooks on their way to the fishing hole?

Now add in the verse from Matthew – how likely is it that two (or three) spiritually mature Christians will agree to pray for a mountain to be uprooted?

I have quite an imagination, so I can make up a story where this might happen. But my estimation of how likely it is outside of fiction is, well, virtually nonexistent.

But given the strength and vividness of the examples in Mark and Luke it is easy to see how  people might find themselves with unrealistic expectations for prayer, especially when their perceived needs are urgent and powerful. And if someone’s expectations for prayer are unmet, the person is likely to assume that he or she does not know how to pray.

So what should we expect from prayer?

I think we can expect answers. As is often said, the answers may be “no” or “not yet” or “yes.”  But the answer could also be a silence that invites us to look beyond our thoughts and desires into what God might will for us. We might even find direction to other objects and forms of prayer.

But it is hard to hear any answers when out own clamoring thoughts take up all the space in our hearing.

So when personal prayer is difficult, consider returning to the formal prayers: the Our Father; the Hail Mary; the Jesus Prayer; the prayer to the Holy Spirit; and even prayers to our name Saint or the Saint of the day.  (The Church Calendar is filled with a glory of saints to ask for intercession and to honor in our prayers.)

Of course there is always, always, always the Rosary . . . but there are also wonderful prayer cycles like the Novena of Surrender, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the Litany of Trust, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and more.

In the end, we are more likely to find ourselves more hard-pressed to find time for daily prayer than we are to find ways to enter into prayer itself.  If we can devote the time, the Holy Spirit will surely help us to fill it with prayer.

Beyond Every Article On Prayer, There Is This —

1 He was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”

2  He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

3  Give us each day our daily bread

4  and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”  [Luke 11:1-4]