The Road to Daybreak by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Author:Henri J. M. Nouwen [Nouwen, Henri J. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5211-2
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2013-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

13

The Struggle of Prayer

The Way to Pray

(Trosly, France; Friday, January 10)

Prayer continues to be very difficult. Still, every morning when I walk in the garden of La Ferme saying the rosary and spending an hour in the oratory simply being in God’s presence, I know that I am not wasting my time. Though I am terribly distracted, I know that God’s spirit is at work in me. Though I have no deeply religious insights or feelings, I am aware of the peace beyond thoughts and emotions. Though my early-morning prayer seems quite unsuccessful, I always look forward to it and guard it as a special time.

A short piece on prayer by Dom John Chapman published in the December 14th Tablet has given me much hope. It is taken from one of his spiritual letters. He writes:

Prayer, in the sense of union with God, is the most crucifying thing there is. One must do it for God’s sake; but one will not get any satisfaction out of it, in the sense of feeling “I am good at prayer. I have an infallible method.” That would be disastrous, since what we want to learn is precisely our own weakness, powerlessness, unworthiness. Nor ought one to expect “a sense of the reality of the supernatural” of which I speak. And one should wish for no prayer, except precisely the prayer that God gives us—probably very distracted and unsatisfactory in every way.

On the other hand, the only way to pray is to pray; and the way to pray well is to pray much. If one has no time for this, then one must at least pray regularly. But the less one prays, the worse it goes. And if circumstances do not permit even regularity, then one must put up with the fact that when one does try to pray, one can’t pray—and our prayer will probably consist of telling this to God.

As to beginning afresh, or where you left off, I don’t think you have any choice. You simply have to begin wherever you find yourself. Make any acts you want to make and feel you ought to make, but do not force yourself into feelings of any kind.

You say very naturally that you do not know what to do if you have a quarter of an hour alone in church. Yes, I suspect the only thing to do is to shut out the church and everything else, and just give yourself to God and beg him to have mercy on you, and offer him all your distractions.*

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