Session One: A Basic Guide to an Authentic Life of Prayer

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One of my favourite saint stories is about St. Teresa of Avila, one of the Church's 'go to' saints for advice on the spiritual life, who was once travelling on a journey in a carriage, or cart of some kind. She lived in the 16th Century, when such journeys were precarious for all sorts of reasons, and on this occasion the wheel of her cart fell off, leaving her, and her fellow travellers, stranded. She is said to have prayed to the Lord: "why have you let this happen?". He answered that "this is how I treat My friends", to which Teresa respond "well... little wonder you have so few!".

I love this story, because it witnesses to a frank intimacy in her relationship with God. Teresa is not inhibited in what she says; she speaks openly and honestly about what matters to her; she is prepared to hear the Lord's reply, but she is comfortable enough with Him to be able to 'say it as she sees it.' Thus for Teresa prayer is "nothing other than an intimate sharing between friends."

(1) These notes and recordings, following the Intimate Prayer course, are all about helping you, wherever you are in your spiritual life, to encounter Jesus more deeply in your prayer - to grow in your personal friendship with Jesus.

• You may be someone for whom the idea of friendship with Jesus seems slightly strange. It may be something you have heard about, but never really understood. I hope and pray that if you stick with the exercises proposed throughout this course a window will be opened for more intimate contact with Jesus, and the idea of a personal relationship with Him will become clearer.
• Prayer may already be a regular part of your life, but perhaps you sometimes feel like you are struggling to see where it is all going. In this case, I hope the course will offer you something of a refresh in your spiritual life.
• Finally, even if you are someone who is well advanced in the spiritual life, you may still find this course helpful, as it will give you some of the language needed to express your spiritual experience. This is essential for evangelisation, as a huge part of evangelisation is about witnessing to our own personal encounter with the Lord, which is precisely what the apostles did.

(2) From the very outset of this course, therefore, I want to emphasise that what we are about is seeking to enter relationship with God. This means, we need to be open to God as He has revealed Himself to us.

"He is there like a loving Father. He loves each one of us more than all the mothers in the world can love their children... How often we have misbehaved and then cleared the frowns from our parents' brows, telling them: I won't do it any more! — That same day, perhaps, we fall again... — And our father, with feigned harshness in his voice and serious face, reprimands us, while in his heart he is moved, realizing our weakness and thinking: poor child, how hard he tries to behave well!

We've got to be filled, to be imbued with the idea that our Father, and very much our Father, is God who is both near us and in heaven." (St. Josemaria Esciva, The Way, 267)

(3) We bring to prayer all sorts of preconceptions about God and also about ourselves. Often these preconceptions are not especially helpful. For the purposes of this course, I will be inviting you to lay aside some of those preconceptions and simply open your heart to meet God - where you are today. Only in this way can that encounter happen where cor ad cor loquitur, where heart speaks unto heart.

In order to do this, I suggest you will need to do two things. Firstly, you will need to create some room in your life, and secondly, you will need to spend this time in silence.

(4) Time for God. Some people reading this may already be accustomed to making regular time(s) for prayer; others will not. For the purpose of following this six week Intimate Prayer course to the greatest effect, you will need to set aside a period for prayer everyday.

• How long you spend in prayer is properly dependent on your state of life. It requires generosity to spend time in prayer, and, like your financial contribution to the mission of the Church, the amount you give should be generous in proportion to your means. The retired person may be able to give more in this regard, than the employed person.
• I would like to suggest, however, as a minimum, that whatever your state of life, you would be well advised to spend 20 minutes a day. I believe that for a serious Christian, one third of one hour out of a twenty-four hour day, is realistic, even for the busiest person. The old adage runs 'if you are too busy to pray, then you are too busy', and I think this applies if you cannot find 20 minutes in an ordinary day.
• When you pray is up to you. It doesn't need to be the same time everyday. The advice from the tradition, though, would be to pray first thing in the day - let spending time with Jesus be the first order of business of the day. If you are a busy person, the best way to find 20 minutes is to rise 20 minutes earlier.
• Be a Hero! To stay up 20 minutes (or more) longer in your day, to pray, requires a heroic 'no!' to self. Trust me, if you do, it will make your prayer that much more fruitful for having said 'no' to yourself.
• Make the time of prayer everyday. I don't want you to become scrupulous or compulsive about this, but you need to take it seriously. If you fail on a given day, make a firm resolution to be different tomorrow - and take steps to make sure you are. Normally, this will mean making the time earlier in the day, before other emergencies take over.
• Forming a new virtuous habit is a bit like weight training. You have to stretch yourself out of your comfort zone, at first, but then it becomes easier. Likewise, you have to continue to maintain that strength.

(5) Make the time in Silence. Having discerned the amount of time you are going to pray for, you then need to make a resolution to spend this time in silence.

• Without silence, it is virtually impossible for us to hear God speaking to us. It is, I think, no accident that a decline in spirituality in the modern era has been accompanied by an increase in noise through industrialisation and electrification. Many people today have absolutely no silence between waking and sleeping.
• Throughout this course, we will look at six different ways of praying that will help you to navigate this silence. At times, indeed very often, it will be difficult, but you need to be prepared to make the brave journey through the silence.
• You will need to be realistic and generous. We can't close roads and airports; and we may not even be able to find perfect silence in our home. Do what you can and trust God to do the rest. Specifically, shut off your own noise (eg. switch off electronic devices) so that you can create, at least, some inner silence.
• The world is so full of distractions today. Our prayer needs to be an oasis away from as many of them as possible. This, incidentally, is another key reason for praying first thing in the morning.

Key points

• In this course we are seeking to be open to a personal relationship with God.
• We need to have an openness to the True God, and to our true selves.
• We need to choose a period of prayer, at least 20 minutes, which we will make everyday.
• This time will be spent in silence.

Next Steps
1. Can I answer the questions on the Handout?
2. Listen to the short audio discussion about this session. 
3. Now spend 20 minutes (or more) in silence using the prayer exercise on Lectio Divina on the handout.