Dermot Mansfield SJ explores some of the ways our heart can be really awakened so that we can enter into it in prayer: using traditional prayers I grew up with, quietening myself down so I can hear the deeper voice, spontaneously responding to situations that arise in my life, the Scripture readings or responsorial psalm at Mass. For the person of faith, any and all of these can be a springboard to prayer.
Last month, I introduced these articles on prayer by mentioning people in my life whose prayer has influenced me personally. Then I went on to say what I believe is the secret to prayer: Enter into your own heart, and you will pray. Why did I say that? Because of the fact that there is a wonderful mystery in each of us, namely the mystery of God dwelling there, in our innermost being.
‘We will come, and we will make our home in you,’ Jesus says of himself and the Father (Jn:14:23). The home of God, a home where God loves us endlessly, is in the heart of you and me, in every believer. That home of God, therefore, is a place of love, and of prayer, which never ceases within us. That is why I say, Enter into your own heart, and you will pray.
Below the surface
The challenge, of course, is to enter into my own heart. Many pressures in life could leave me living on the surface, pulled about, anxious, distracted, and hardly able to become quiet and be in touch with the depths of myself. So I have to make some kind of an effort to slow down from time to time, and to get below that surface of distracted living. Once I do that, then I am in touch with the mystery of prayer within, which is going on, whether I am aware of it or not.
The few simple prayers I know; attending as best I can at Mass; remembering the needs of people near and far; any spontaneous prayer of thanks or praise, or cry for help when I am despondent and needy: all of these things are examples of the best of prayer, coming from my human heart and in tune with the heart of God.
Monastic tradition
Is this approach to prayer I am putting forward far-fetched? I don’t think so. One of my favourite pieces of reading on prayer is entitled, ‘Return to Your Heart’. It is from a book called The Cistercian Way, by Dom André Louf, where the ancient way of monastic and Cistercian prayer is outlined very well.
There the question is asked how young people over the centuries entering monastic life were led into prayer. They were led into it, as Dom André says, by following that simple but profound dictum, Return to your heart. The monastic life, including its way of prayer, is indeed one of the heart, lived out over a lifetime, in a setting and in companionship conducive to cultivating and sustaining the God-oriented truth of our humanity.
Contrasting settings
Now, I will concede that living the Cistercian life with the monks at Mount Mellary in the Knockmealdown mountains, for instance, or with the Cistercian Sisters at Glencairn on the banks of the lovely Blackwater river, will certainly be a great help to prayer. After all, their life revolves around prayer. The whole atmosphere in such places is one of prayer.
But, for most of you who read this, surely it is a different story, as you live in the midst of the noise and bustle of ordinary life? It is, of course. And yet, we all, in our different settings, by returning to our hearts, are drawn into the same great flowing river of prayer, which is the ceaseless life of God given to us. All of us, by grace and faith, are part of that same wonderful reality which is deep within us, where the Holy Spirit reaches out to the whole world and carries us into the depths of God.
There is, however, another important part to this teaching about prayer in the heart. What is it, after all, that most touches and affects my human heart? Surely, in the ordinary course of things, it is the approach of other people, the way they look at me, their words, their needs? Once my heart is opened in some way such at this, then I am affected, and moved to respond.
My heart, after all, is meant to be in dialogue with another. It is awakened by ‘you’, the other, when you look at me, gesture towards me and, perhaps above all, when you call me by my name. In other words, when your heart speaks to mine, then there is a depth of response and communion.
Word of the living God
And so there is another section in that Cistercian book, entitled, ‘The Word awakens the heart,’ for the Word of the living God is always addressing me, speaking to me. It does so in a very special way for those in monastic and contemplative life. But the Scriptural Word at Mass, in the readings, in the responsorial psalm, is there for each of us on Sundays, or perhaps even weekdays.
Something in those texts, once I am listening as best I can, awakens the heart. But in many, many other ways, too, God is speaking a word to me. God speaks through the kind courtesy of another person, through the beautiful light of the sky, through the flowers, and through the music I like.
God speaks, too, through what at first is difficult or dark for me: an illness, a sore loss, even a failure. God draws good out of such things, and speaks to my heart with love and in truth.
‘Do not be afraid, Israel, I have called you by your name, you are mine.’ These words of Scripture (Is 43:1) are truly addressed to each of us. Leave out the word ‘Israel,’ and put in your own name. For God addresses you, calls you by your very own name, and loves you.
‘I have loved you with an everlasting love,’ is God’s truest word for each one of us (Jer 31:3). How my heart awakens when it hears and receives such love! My heart awakens, and responds with overwhelming gratitude. Prayer moves deeply within me, reaches back into the depths of God, and also expands out into all the world, the world so loved by God that he gives his own beloved Child to redeem and heal it (Jn 3:6).
Where God dwells
Now we are reaching into dizzying heights and depths. But all of those heights and depths are in the heart, yours and mine, where the eternal God dwells, and into which are whispered words of truth and love. My heart, then, can do no other than awaken into prayer, the prayer already there deep within, but now bubbling up and overflowing.
Perhaps, just now, I can manage no more than the Our Father and the Hail Mary and the Glory be to the Father. But in their rich words and phrases my poor heart is expanding, and within me there is a prayer that leads beyond human words: into the endless loving of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (August 2006), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
