Praying from the heart

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THIS can only mean that our communication with God should be genuine, sincere and authentic. It’s about being honest about our thoughts, feelings and struggles. It should express our true intentions and desires.

It should not be about using fancy language or trying to impress. It’s about being real and open with God, connecting with God on a personal and emotional level, and speaking from a position of humility. It should be freed from pretenses, from using the so-called “right words.”

This much we can gather from that gospel episode where Christ told his disciples: “When you pray, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knows what is needful for you, before you ask him.” (Mt 6,7-8) And from there he proceeded to give the ideal prayer which is the Lord’s Prayer or the “Our Father.”

In our quest to be true souls of prayer, we should see to it that our prayer really comes from our heart that is full of faith and humility. We have to be wary of our great tendency to be dominated by worldly and temporal concerns such that we fail to properly pray. That would be a disaster since that would be like being deluded that we are doing well in life when in fact we are failing big time.

We have to start to pick up the rudiments of prayer and begin the process of becoming authentic souls of prayer, such that wherever we are, whatever situation we may be in, somehow we are always praying, we are always in touch with God.

This should not be difficult because we know that God is always around. He is everywhere. Besides, he is always solicitous of us. He cannot fail to love us. We may fail him and earn his anger, but that anger would only be for a while, since his mercy is forever. We can always manage to pray any time and in any place if we just would have the proper disposition.

Definitely, we need to exercise our faith and be willing to exert effort and make sacrifices. That is how we can aspire to make our prayer alive always. We should put ourselves in God’s presence always so we avoid anonymity in our intimate conversations with him.

What can also help is to train and use our imagination in our prayer. In fact, we have to use all our human powers and faculties — our intelligence and will, our feelings and memory, etc. — in our prayer.

And we should be ready to handle the unavoidable difficulties in our prayer. There will be times when we would feel dry and uninspired or when we would be tempted to think that our prayer is going nowhere.

Those difficulties are actually opportunities to improve our prayer and to grow in our spiritual life. If we persevere in praying, using all the means that are always available, we will see how this improvement and growth are taking place, and be filled with joy and satisfaction.

We really need to learn to pray from the heart, which also means that prayer should be second nature to us. As such, prayer becomes a constant activity. We can and should turn everything into prayer.

Even our work and mundane affairs should be an occasion or even a means of prayer as well. We should end up praying as we breathe, and as our heart beats. Thus, St. Paul once said: “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thes 5,17)

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com