Pray, Tell Me What It Means

Last updated on: May 31, 2017 at 8:31 am by Father Seán ÓLaoire, PhD

Pray, Tell Me What It Means 2017-05-31T08:31:46-08:00 Father Seán ÓLaoire, PhD

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Prayer means many things. For one thing, there are lots of different kinds of prayer. Most people only think of intercessory prayer; but that’s only one kind of prayer. There’s also prayer of praise, prayer of thanksgiving, prayer of adoration, prayer through meditation, liturgical prayer. But since most people think mainly about prayer of petition, let me focus this essay on that aspect.

Prayer of petition is where you want a specific outcome and you appeal to some God to effect that outcome. And what might be the explanation for “successful” prayer of petition? Some people think it’s merely chatting about the inevitable. Their argument goes like this: if God exists and is omniscient, then presumably he has factored all pieces into the equation – including the prayer that is to come ten years down the line. There is not going to be any change because God had factored in all the pieces and had come up with the final outcome. So, then, prayer of petition is just wasting your time or chatting about the inevitable, for God is going to do what God is going to do. I obviously don’t believe in that model.

A second notion is that prayer of petition operates like a satellite dish. Suppose I want to pray for my brother Séamus, who lives in Ireland, but because of the curvature of the Earth I can’t pray for him directly, so I have to bounce my prayer off God like a satellite dish in the sky and God directs my prayer down to Séamus. God is some kind of intermediary bouncing my requests onto their targets. I don’t believe that is true either, but a lot of people operate with that model.

A third explanation is what I call the Abrahamic model. It claims that you can argue with God. There’s a great story of Abraham bargaining over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, and saying to God, “If there are 50 good people in these cities are you still going to destroy them?” And God says, “Well, if there are 50, I’ll save them.” “What if there are only 45?” “Okay.” “Suppose there are only 40?” “You got a deal.” “Suppose there are only 30, 20?” And he goes right down to 10. So, is prayer about arguing with God, bending his arm to get what you want? I don’t think that is how prayer works.

A fourth notion is what I call the Mosaic model. There’s a story of Moses in the desert where the Israelites are doing battle with the Amalekites. Moses goes up on a hilltop to pray; he’s got his hands raised and he’s appealing to God to help his side; as long as he can keep his hands in the air, the Israelites are winning. But his arms get tired and they begin to droop and then the Amalekites begin to win; so two helpers come to his aid, one on the left side and one on the right side and they prop up Moses’ hands; then the Israelites win. So, some people think there is a kind of trick to prayer. If you can figure out what the trick is you get what you want; it may be a pilgrimage to Mecca or doing the Nine First Fridays or going to Lourdes or whatever. I don’t believe there’s a trick to it at all.

I think of prayer like a sprinkler system in a lawn; you have all these underground pipes connected to one faucet, which is the source: God’s love for us. By this love, the water flows through the entire system and sprinkles the lawn that is human life. But there are nexus points where the pipes join and when they get clogged up, an area of the lawn gets no water. The sprinkler in that area isn’t going to work because it’s all clogged up.

What clogs it up is prejudice, unwillingness to forgive, and bad theology. The object of prayer, then, is to free up the blockages within the pipe system so that the water, which is within the system already, is free to reach the entire lawn.

I don’t think God is involved in prayer at all. I don’t think prayer is about asking God to make any change in the outcome. I think prayer is about human beings freeing the blockages in the water system so that others can benefit from our compassion. Prayer is about our consciousness and our mindfulness which allow the blockages within the system to be dissolved so the water can flow freely to its targets; I call it laserized intentionality.

We are not appealing for a transcendent entity to intervene in human affairs and change an outcome. But since we ourselves are bite-sized bits of God, we are, in a sense, praying to God; we’re trying to access our own inner divinity. Except that for most of us it is really difficult to believe and so we create symbols outside of ourselves in order to try to focus what’s actually within; we project this image outside in order to see it more clearly, but then think the action is really out there.

It’s as if you are watching a movie screen and you think that John Wayne is actually riding across the stage from left to right and you take out your gun and start shooting at him; when, in fact, the action is happening in the projection box. But it is very boring to go into the projectionist’s box and finger the celluloid roll watching the movie one frame at a time! By projecting it onto a screen, we get the illusion of change, of time, of speed and of size. It allows us to see very clearly what is happening on the celluloid frames. But if we think it is actually happening on the screen we are deluding ourselves.

When we pray to God, it’s to help us focus on an image of something that’s within ourselves. But if we think it is outside and we are praying to an entity that is going to intervene from the outside, we get it wrong. Prayer is an aid to self-realization, it’s an aid to becoming fully aware, it’s an aid to laserizing my internationality. It’s being driven from the God within me, and my target is the God within you or the God within whomsoever I’m praying for.

And it has five important components: Firstly, it’s only effective if it comes from a heart free of anger and fear. Secondly, the heart must then be filled with compassion (“to understand all, is to forgive all” – as the French proverb says). Thirdly, comes a laserised, radically-focused intention. Fourthly, complete trust in the universe/source to deliver the most benevolent outcome. And, fifthly, the detachment that flows from that trust.

Prayer never fails. If it is real prayer it moves the whole system into a deeper alignment with love.

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