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Prayer in the three centers

How shall we pray?

It is the question every Christian wants to ask, but no one dares, assuming others will think less of them. But everybody wants to know how. How shall we pray?

The classic models invite us to pray every day – or at the beginning and end of every day – or at several different hours throughout the day. Saint Paul even suggests that we should pray constantly (1 Thessalonians 5:17). But how shall we pray?

The liturgy of the church offers us psalms, and formal written prayers, and readings from the Scriptures and the saints. A classic mnemonic – ACTS – invites us to work through our own extempore Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and prayers of Supplication. So we read these words, or we think through these topics, but is that prayer? How shall we pray?

The perfect prayer takes all that we are and offers it up to God. The perfect prayer takes body and mind and heart, and offers them up to God.

It is the mind that will most easily be caught up into prayer through the use of words. Written words, memorized words, extempore words, can lift the mind to God: words of adoration, words of confession, words of thanksgiving, words of intercession – and the Scriptures, writings, and prayers of the church. By this prayer the mind is offered up to God and transformed.

The heart will most easily pray in images and emotions without any words. The prayer of the heart occurs not when the prayer is spoken in words, but when it is felt in the images and emotions and compassion of the heart. The heart is lifted up to God by choosing to dwell for a precious and silent time in the images and emotions of the adoration of God, in the images and emotions of humble confession before God, in the images and emotions of profound gratitude toward God, and in the images and emotions of the compassionate and trusting plea before God. The heart may often be well guided into these images and emotions by the words of the psalms and the prayers of the church – but will need silence between the words ‘to do the heart work.’ Non-verbal images – through any of the five senses – can equally guide the heart to prayer. In either case it is important that the heart should not be overwhelmed or bombarded: it has prayer work to do. By this prayer work in image and compassion and emotion, the heart can be offered up to God, and transformed.

And for some people, neither the mind nor the heart is the center of who they are: both the prayer of the mind and the prayer of the heart seem awkward and artificial, disconnected from the real business of life. These are the gut types, and they really do pray most easily through their bodies: through their hands, through their actions, through their posture, through their resolve, or by just being there. And just as we all need to find both the prayer of the mind and the prayer of the heart if we are to offer our whole selves to God, so also we need to find the prayer that offers up the rest of who we are. At the end of the Eucharist we pray: ‘we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice.’

We can pray through our hands: to be doing the right thing can be a form of prayer; to be doing the wrong thing is to be far from prayer. The priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side were missing their opportunity to pray: the practical attention of the Samaritan to the person in need was a worthy form of prayer (Luke 10:29‑37). Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication can all be caught up in the process of that act of kindness – prayer, literally, in action.

We can pray through posture. Sometimes the words and images and emotions mean less than the action of being physically ‘on our knees’ – in adoration or confession or supplication – or on our feet in thanksgiving. There will be times when it is right to experience the peace of God’s presence in the complete stillness of our bodies. There will be times when it is right to experience the overwhelming joy of God’s presence in dance – if only in the dance of the liturgy: standing to hear the words of Christ proclaimed, greeting our neighbors at the peace, singing to raise the roof, rising to tip toes at the high praise of the eucharistic prayer, forming processions, raising hands, and gathering at the altar for the sharing of broken bread and poured out wine. To experience the sacraments is, supremely, to bring the experience of prayer into our physicality. And sometimes the most important prayer is simply being there, in the place of prayer: the words and the images may not connect, the mind and the heart may be weary, but the body is there, making the sacrifice of praise, humbly offered up to God for God’s transformation of purpose, for God’s service.

One of these zones of prayer – body or head or heart – will be your home zone, the place you most easily pray – but the perfect prayer takes all that we are and offers it up to God. The perfect prayer takes body and mind and heart, and offers them up to God, ‘a living sacrifice.’

How shall we pray? With body, mind and heart.

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