Prayer: A Practical Guide / How To Pray: A Practical Guide

Spiritual Life, Winter 2003 by McCarty, Julie

Prayer: A Practical Guide. By Rev. Martin Pable. Foreword by Alice Camille. ACTA Publications (Assisting Christians To Act): 4848 N. Clark Street, Chicago, Ill. 60640, 2002. Pp. 96. Paper. $9.95.

How To Pray: A Practical Guide. By David Torkington. Foreword by Sr. Wendy Beckett. Alba House: The Society of St. Paul, 2187 Victory Boulevard, Staten Island, N. Y. 10314-6603, 2003. Pp. 92. Paper. $4.95.

Sometimes one's prayer life seems to go stale, like an old loaf of bread. Prayer time is filled with boredom or unsatisfying feelings. I may be tired of praying the same old way, the way I prayed ever since I was a child. Or, perhaps I have had a rich, fruitful prayer life for years but suddenly find myself frustrated or confused about my spiritual life.

Causes for a lackluster prayer life vary. It could be that I'm just feeling a little lazy lately and need to redouble my effort. Perhaps I was never taught much about different prayer forms and the time is ripe to learn. If I have been faithful to prayer for some time, this strange turn of events might actually be an invitation from God to a deeper way of praying.

Prayer: A Practical Guide offers a solid overview of various methods of prayer. In chapter 1, Fr. Martin Pable, a Capuchin priest, reminds us that prayer is not limited to reciting words. Prayer is primarily about relationship, our relationship with God. Like a treasured friendship or a happy marriage, one's relationship with God involves communication and spending quality time together. Prayer involves getting to know the Lord better and being willing to reveal my deeper side to him. Gradually, the things that are important to God become important to me as well. Because of these relationship dynamics, one can define prayer as "any act whereby we consciously attend to the presence of God within us or around us" (p. 9).

After laying this foundation, Pable delves into various ways to pray. He shows how to use traditional prayers like the Lord's Prayer, the rosary, or psalms for praying in a more meditative fashion. The chapter on "conversational prayer" gives ideas about how to pray using your own words, whether it be to petition God, thank God, or pray through the experiences of the day.

The classic method of praying with Scriptures, lectio divina ("holy reading"), is covered in chapter four. Tips are given for praying with others in small groups and how to enrich one's prayer life through the Eucharistic celebration even when the choir is singing off-pitch or the homily is uninspiring.

The chapter on meditation and contemplation provides a good introduction for readers unfamiliar with these prayer forms. Pable describes meditation as "a way of prayer in which we focus on some divine truth or mystery" (p. 51-52). Using our ability to think and imagine, we spend time reflecting on a particular phrase of Scripture or an event in the life of Christ. In the process of meditating, we enter into the mystery in such a way that feelings of praise, wonder, or gratitude may surface. Perhaps our meditation will prompt us to choose a particular course of action, such as asking someone for forgiveness. While using Scripture for our starting point is good, some people also begin with a wonder of nature (such as a falling leaf), a personal experience, or a book of guided meditations.

Contemplation, on the other hand, involves less thinking or reflecting than meditation. Pable observes that most of us have experienced "contemplative moments." For example, it may happen that when presented with an awesome sunset or a soft, innocent newborn baby, "We become aware-suddenly or gradually-that we are in the presence of some Being, some Mystery far greater than ourselves" (p. 56). We find ourselves experiencing a sense of oneness or wonder. This is a "contemplative moment."

Contemplative prayer is a way of praying very simply, sometimes with a single word such as "Jesus" or "Spirit," or sometimes without any words at all. It is a quiet, interior "gazing" upon the God we love. Chapter six deals with how to pray for healing. All of us have a need for healing of some sort. The author describes attitudes we need for genuine healing to take place: faith that God desires to give us wholeness, gratefulness for what God has already done for us, and open receptivity to whatever God may give us in the future. Forgiving those who have hurt us is also part of the process.

Pable also undertakes the challenge that praying for healing doesn't always "work": "In spite of our fervent and persistent prayers, the cancer spreads; we do lose our job; our child does get in trouble; our marriage crumbles; our loved ones die" (p. 70). He tackles this spiritual difficulty using Dan Crosby's distinction between "being cured" and "being healed." Sometimes God answers our prayers by removing the problem, such as curing a person of cancer. Other times God regenerates the person in a different sense. The illness remains but grace heals the inner person, bringing about greater wholeness and spiritual transformation.