Others
prefer to express themselves more freely, using
their own words. However we do it, the important
thing is to put ourselves in the presence of God
and open our hearts to him, knowing that he is
with us as a merciful Father who always loves us
and knows us better than we do ourselves. We will
often realise that the words are not all that important;
God knows what we want to say, and there is more
to share with him than we can ever put into words.
So it is not surprising that when we pray we find
it easier to use words less and less and to pray
in silence.
Easier in one sense. In fact praying in silence for
a long time teaches us how hard it is to raise our
hearts and minds to God. They are set on so many
other things! Growth in prayer involves a long process
of purification and simplification, so that we can
learn to want the one thing that matters above and
before all else. And that is God.
But that is only half of the story, and the less
important half too! Prayer is a two-way thing. We
can love God only because we have discovered God's
love for us. Prayer is fundamentally a relationship
with God. In times of prayer we have to let God be
God, and let him be there for us. Prayer is above
all about listening and waiting. People who pray
believe that God talks to them. This means that as
we learn to listen and wait, in the quiet of our
hearts we find that we are beginning to grow in an
understanding of God, that our hearts are being changed
so that we can do his will, and that respond to the
signs of his presence in the world and the people
around us.
St Benedict does not say much about prayer in this
personal sense. But he certainly hoped that a monastery
would be a place where people could be continually
aware of his presence, and have the space and time
to listen and open their hearts to God, whether that
was in the times of common prayer, or by being able
to go into the Church to pray on their own. Above
all, the meditative reading of the Bible, lectio
divina, gives every monk a time to feed on God's
word and pray.
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