For freedom Christ set us free, and we will experience freedom to the extent that we live the life of the Spirit of freedom in Christ. This necessarily means that we will need to be men and women of prayer.
It is important to note that in the monastic tradition, prayer is always a battle.
It’s a peculiar type of battle, however, as it’s a battle to believe and interiorize the reality that God is every bit as great as His reputation among the saints. That His love and mercy are real and meant for us, no matter how undeserving we feel. That no matter how dry prayer is, it is the path that will eventually put us face to face with the God Who is calling us out of darkness into His own marvelous light.
We also know that the battle is with the logismoi, those thoughts that obtrude themselves between our hearts and God. Part of the difficulty in identifying these thoughts is that they may have become so deeply engrained in our awareness that we confuse them with reality or with our own true assessment of reality.
These thoughts will almost certainly affect all of us at one time or another, and some of us will be affected by them profoundly for much of our lives. They are doors into greater self-knowledge and greater faith and love of God. But we must understand them properly to find the key to this door.
So, I would begin this meditation by having each of us ask himself, “How do I feel when I kneel down to pray?”
Do I feel like I am approaching a Father Who loves me, accepts me, is even seeking me out to share life with me? Do I feel like I’m sharing my concerns, hopes and dreams with someone who really cares about them?
Do I feel like prayer is an obligation, and one that I’m not really up to? That I would put off praying if I could, to get myself in better shape spiritually, to be “presentable” to God? Do I attend common prayer dutifully, but struggle to enter into it because it seems to be about someone else? That is for those better qualified than I am to pray, perhaps someone whom God loves more than He loves me? When it is time for lectio divina, am I eager to hear what God has to say, or do I fear that it will just be more criticism and guilt-tripping? Or more high-flown sentiments that seem meant for those blessed to be saints, but in the end not applicable to me?
These distracting thoughts, which are, in fact, false, fall into two types which I would like to unpack over the next two posts.