In Conversation with God, Part I

In his Rule, our Holy Father St. Benedict does not give us a program or description of how the monk is to pray.  He assumes that a monk is a man of prayer.  In his Prologue (17-19) we find these words addressed to the man who is seeking God:  If you desire true and eternal life, keep your tongue from evil and do good; let peace be your quest and aim.  Once you have done this, my eyes will be upon you and my ears will listen for your prayers; and even before you ask me, I will say to you:  Here I am.  What, dear brothers, is more delightful than this voice of the Lord calling to us?  God is ever listening for our prayer – our invitation to enter into our lives – so that He can respond to us.

It has been said that God is the most patient – and the most courteous – never imposing His will on our lives but waiting for us to turn to Him.  The painting, Christ Knocking at Heart’s Door wonderfully illustrates this point.  The door in this painting does not have a handle on the outside.  Christ will stand outside and knock, but we must be willing to open the door to Him from the inside.

That opening of the door is what prayer is about.  It is about a dialog, a conversation, with God.  While there are many types and practices of prayer and devotion, the one that seems to me to be the most intimate is the one of simply being before the Lord, open to hear His word in the quiet of one’s heart. 

How do we become people of prayer?  How do we open the door of our heart to God and invite Him in so that we can speak with Him heart to heart? 

Silence and solitude are the two avenues through which we can become people of prayer and begin to open the door of our heart.  Silence does not simply mean a lack of external noise.  Many times it is the internal noise that is more distracting to our prayer.  We do not need to do the mental checklist of things that need to be done, what we need to do next, etc.  Nor do we need to go over our mental list of things we have suffered wrongfully, what someone else did or was allowed to do; murmuring is murmuring whether or not someone else hears it.  It poisons the soul.  Quieting the mind also quiets the heart; then one can begin to hear the voice of the Lord speaking.