Keeping faithful to prayer when it is hard.

When we were seminarians studying for the priesthood, in one of the spiritual conferences given by a religious priest, one of us asked a question “Father, what should we do when prayer is dry?” 

Without missing a beat, and with the sense of humour he was known for, this priest replied “Tell me, brother, what is a wet prayer?”  His reply forced us to articulate several things about common-held notions of prayer that affect many people.  What are we experiencing when this so-called dryness shows up in our prayer?  What does it mean?  How do we handle it?  When we pray in this state, does it affect our prayer? 

In the purest sense of the word, prayer is the act of turning our gaze and attention outside of ourselves and onto God.  God is the ultimate focus of prayer.  This fulfills that definition of prayer that says it is a call to adore, worship and glorify God.  It is primarily God-centered.  When we understand this, it will be clear that anything that turns the focus and attention ourselves, be they our needs or what troubles us, is the secondary purpose of prayer. 

Whenever we speak about feelings or sentiments, the focus is always on us and not God. 

In prayer spirituality, the phrases “consolations” and “desolations” are often used when referring to what experiences we go through during prayer.  Some of us tend to confuse this with prayer being dry or not.    

Consolations in prayer have very much do to with God and how our hearts and minds are drawn to him, loving him for who he is, regardless of what is happening in our world.  To give a very graphic example, let’s say that you were living in New York City when 9/11 happened, and the day after the horrendous incident, you went into prayer and you were drawn to loving God despite the way that life was literally interrupted for you and for countless others.  If your prayer was mainly centered on God, and not asking for his divine justice, it would be a consolation that you had been given.  It was prayer in its finest definition – praise and love of God.  In short, your prayer was not about you or your circumstance.  During that time spent in prayer, your heart was beating in tandem and in harmony with God, who had been knocking on the door of your heart.

However, when one experiences spiritual desolations, one’s focus is often away from God and on the self.  One’s mind and heart are only filled with the matters of the self and the world, and this can lead to the false belief that one’s prayer makes no difference, leading to the temptation to abandon prayer altogether.  At these times, one doesn’t at all feel attracted or drawn to God nor hear his gentle knocking on the doors of our hearts. 

In his Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius speaks about how our lives are affected by two spirits – good and evil.  When he speaks about desolations in our spiritual lives, he makes it clear that they are caused by the ‘evil spirit’.  When we read the words ‘evil spirit’, we must not only have the idea of a malevolent force that is destructive.  Whatever does not contribute to our desire for God and his goodness is a spirit that is evil.  It doesn’t even have to be an evil that is personal in form.

So what should we do when it comes to dealing with desolations in our prayer life?  St Ignatius gives us very useful instructions so as not to go from desolation to despair.

1)   He instructs firstly that we need to want divine assistance in our spiritual growth.  St Ignatius must have seen that many men and women were never really concerted in their desire to get close to God.  Articulating this as a desire and intention is therefore the first step.  It cannot be something that is merely passive in intention.

2)   Put effort in meditation on the words of Sacred Scripture, where God’s promises his undying and unconditional presence in our lives.  Passages which remind us that God is ever faithful are held in our minds in silence.  Some useful passages are Deuteronomy 7:9, Psalms 36:5, 89:8, 119:90, Romans 3:3, 1 Cor 1:9, 1 Cor 10:9 and Heb 10:23.

3)   A thorough and sincere self-examination often helps to uncover and reveal where we may have contributed to this state of affairs.  Sometimes, the desolations we experience can be traced to the time when our lives entered morally troubled waters, or when we were slipping into some addiction that went out of control.  If we have been living double lives or lives that are deceitful in any way, our prayer life will always be affected.  Humility is of great help in not only identifying these, but also in wanting to do something that can help us manage these concerns well.

4)   Lastly, the taking on of mortification or penances in our lives are noble ways to counter the destructive forces and tendencies of spiritual desolation.  Fasting is highly recommended, as well as works of mercy that make others and their needs greater than ours.  Mortifications of all sorts tend to train us to be humble.  Certainly, one should avail oneself to the sanctifying grace that comes to us every time we go to a priest for the sacrament of reconciliation. 

Experiencing challenges and difficulties in prayer will always abound simply because we are human.  We tend to take into our prayer psyche so much from the way that we deal with worldly things.  The truth is that our spiritual lives have a depth and dynamics that are more different than the way the world works.  There is a lot more that is uncommon than common.  We tend to give up or stop doing something that is painful or arduous, or not bearing the kind of fruit that we want it to.  In the spiritual life, especially when it comes to prayer, this would be the worst thing that we can do.

The following quote is often attributed to the statesman Sir Winston Churchill, but apparently, the veracity of this has yet to be substantiated.  Apparently, he is known to have said “If you find that you are going through hell, just keep going.  Hell is not a place for anyone to stop.”  We would do well to apply this kind of tenacity to our prayer life.