“…In silence He listens to us; in silence He speaks to our souls. In silence we are granted the privilege of listening to His voice.” (Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta).
I was praying for someone who is dear to me the other day and I was reflecting on the way that I pray…
Often when I pray, I use words. For me this is the easiest way to pray, because my soul is very little and weak and I need to be taught how to speak like a child. Just as a mother teaches her child to speak by saying the words and asking her child to repeat them, so too does Our Blessed Mother give me the words that She wants me to say through the prayers that She prays…
In this way, I “talk at” God when I pray the most holy Rosary and the most holy Divine Mercy, word after word after word and prayer after prayer after prayer and bead after bead after bead…
And these types of prayer are very important because without them I would be lost! You see, they are both meditative and vocal prayer, which means that as I say the words and move my fingers over the beads, I reflect on the mysteries of the rosary or on the passion and death of Our Lord, using my words to focus my mind.
This type of prayer is very useful because it focuses my otherwise extremely distracted and undisciplined mind on my prayers…
But there is a danger in praying ONLY in this way. You see, even for my very simple soul, there are other types of prayer – just as there are different ways to have conversations and to communicate with each other.
Sometimes, prayer involves my work. When I offer up the activities of my day or the problems that I encounter I can share my day with my Beloved. I see this type of prayer as an act of love from my Beloved in much the same way that I – as a mother – express love for my children when I go to their school to watch them perform.
This is an act of love because I give them my time, and I allow them to feel my presence with them. This is because it is in this way that I can express my love for my children and they can express their love for me…
After all, when they know that their mother is coming to watch them at school, they try to be on their best behaviour and they want to make a good impression so that I will be proud of them. It is the same with me when I offer my day and my work to God. I too, want to make Him proud of me. I too, want to impress Him. And so, this means that I too, try harder and do better when He is part of the activity through this offering of my day…
And sometimes too, my prayer involves silence. This is harder for me because I am unused to sitting still. His type of prayer involves sitting still and silently and listening to God, who can speak to me in the silence of my own heart…
For prayer is a dialogue, and as with any dialogue, prayer involves both sound and silence – speaking and listening… Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta summarised this very well when she said, “What is essential is not what we say but what God tells us and what He tells others through us. In silence He listens to us; in silence He speaks to our souls. In silence we are granted the privilege of listening to His voice.”
And so it is that now, in silence, I dare to pray…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.