Pray without ceasing (Luke 21: 36)

In His Epistle to the Colossians, describes the kind of everyday life Christians should lead. “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of the Father. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead [unregenerated man]; and your life is hid with Christ in God. Strip yourselves of the old man with his deeds and put on the new….”

It is the Christian’s duty to give love the foremost place in his daily life. “Bearing with on another… if any have a complaint against another…. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles…. All whatsoever you do, …do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God” (Col 3: 1-17).

And again: “Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving.” To the Ephesians he writes: “Redeeming the time, …understand what is the will of God….Be filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to each other in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to God the Father” (Eph 5: 16-20). A life of constant gratitude to God, a happy state of trust in God, of incessant living communion with God. That is the Apostle Paul’s concept of a Christian life.

It was self-evident to and the early Christians that everything they did should be done in the name of Jesus, in an attitude of prayer, and that their hearts should sing with thankfulness to God and gratitude for whatever life might bring them, whether satisfying or trying. They were so filled with God, with faith in the great beneficence they owed to Him, and they saw God and His goodness so clearly in everything, that they felt impelled continually to sing His praises.

We, on the other hand, make heavy weather of a life of true inwardness, of the injunction to “pray without ceasing.” Not that we are lacking in good intentions or an upright desire for an intense inner life, for closer unity with God and Christ. It is simply that we do not grasp the meaning of unceasing prayer.

1. THE MEANING OF INWARDNESS

It may be that in olden times people did not find it any problem to convert their everyday activities into constant prayer. They lived more quietly. There was never the tension between worldly turmoil and inner peace that there is today. Nowadays we have to keep our thoughts intent upon our work. On the fulfillment of our duty, on the machine we are minding. Our studies, our profession, our household tasks demand all our concentrated attention. We are normally so taken up with our occupations that for hours at a stretch we can spare no thought for anything else at all least of all for God. How far we have wandered from ’s ideal, “Sing to the Lord in your hearts!” Hence the question: How can we link up communion with God, the state of constant prayer, of piety and true inwardness, with the irresistible drag of modern life?

Or, in other words, of what does true inwardness, conscious and constant communion with God, really consist?

Inner life, communion with God, does not depend simply on the number of religious exercises, spoken prayers, meditations, indulgences, pious readings, and church attendances we can fit into the day. Many people confuse piety-true inwardness – with pious practices and regard themselves as more and more devout in proportion to the number of these achievements they can chalk up to their credit. When occasionally, through no fault of their own, these good people are forced to curtail their religious exercises, they are loud in lamentation and look upon themselves as already lost- as if practices of piety were piety itself! In reality, a life of Christian inwardness by no means demands an immense prayer output. Neither does it require many hours of ardent praying, meditation, or reflection on God and His mysteries; nor even constant thinking of God, or a succession of mental pictures of God, always close at hand, following us around with His pursuing glance. It does not even require a certain “worked-up” feeling of God’s nearness.

True inwardness, conscious union with God, is fundamentally not a matter of thought or mental processes at all, but rather a matter of will. It is not a succession of acts but an attitude, a condition, an endless, unchangeable state of love for God, of trust in God, of complete subjection to God’s command and will. Essentially bound up with all this, there should be a constant alertness for the inner voice of God, which makes itself known to us in countless unmistakable ways: promptings, impulses, reminders, warnings, pricks of conscience. Inwardness, a constant state of prayer, does not therefore consist of acts but of a permanent soul-attitude involving the subordination of our will to God’s – an attitude grounded in an all-embracing, loving faith that, without effort, habitually sees God and God’s will, providence, and love in everything. From this standpoint the soul gratefully, joyfully, even quite naturally yields itself to God’s will without the least resistance – throws itself confidently into His loving arms. In all things, in occurrences, duties, and difficulties, as well as in the demands of conscience, it hears God’s voice and invitation. Then it answers with a joyful “As it pleases you,” even if not in acts, then at least in readiness: in its attitude of agreement. It is completely dead to its own will. Its sole interest is in God and His pleasure.

Our proper attitude to God is one of faith-inspired trust, as we turn with deep reverence and love to our Father. It should consist of a permanent state of yielding with complete willingness to whatever God wills, ever ready to bear any sufferings, sacrifices, burdens, difficulties, or failures He may choose to send us.

In this “state of constant prayer” we do not spend all our time thinking of God; nor do we occupy ourselves with useless and idle thoughts; nor are we continually “saying prayers.” The essential thing here is that our will, our heart, is forever turned toward God, happily content to avoid anything that might offend Him and seeking only that which will give Him pleasure.

True inwardness – “prayer without ceasing” – is thus by no means impossible; it is not even particularly difficult to attain. Yet there are very few who achieve it. Why?-Because few possess the faculty necessary for incessant prayer. Anyone who wishes to attain this faculty must give himself entirely and without reserve to God, seeking nothing asking nothing for himself; for God alone, for His divine pleasure. Complete exclusion of selfishness and self-love is necessary. The soul no sooner surrenders to God than He floods it with a new awareness of His presence. Then begins the germination of true inwardness, which enables the soul to preserve its tranquility amid all the turmoil of daily life so that, in conscious awareness of the indwelling Presence, it can at last pray without ceasing.

So it is that “prayer without ceasing,” like all true prayer, requires the complete crossing-out of self-a severance from everything that does not minister to God’s will and pleasure. No matter how many spoken prayers we may send up to Heaven, we still have not attained a state of true inwardness until all the requirements are fulfilled. These include the most thorough possible cleaning of the heart, a life of true attrition and renunciation, and the total surrender of all self-love and attachment to personal opinion or to the ego itself.

Based as it is on attrition and true faith and arising out of our love for God, constant prayer at its most intense is an endless, all-embracing fusion of our will with His, an increased desire that His will be done. True inwardness in its most intense form is a state in which the soul is perpetually “tuned in” to the love of God. This in-flow and out-flow of divine love also permeates our work and blesses it. We no longer do our work for our own satisfaction, for other people’s admiration, for gain, but simply for God’s holy pleasure, for His glory and honor. We share the life of God, His will, and His love.

In this spirit of love we shoulder our daily cross. We perceive God’s hand and providence and, without resistance, joyfully accept it. We submit patiently, delighted to be permitted to do His holy will.

This submission in turn opens our eyes more fully to the many small joys that blossom on the way. It gives us an intensified awareness of the beauties of nature, of order, and of grace; of satisfaction through study, the employment of our talents, and intercourse with our fellow men. We get more enjoyment from beautiful flowers, from the flight of birds, and from other spectacles of nature. All the good things that nature and culture offer for our delight are appreciated with deeper intensity. We see behind all these things the infinite abundance of God and His boundless fatherly goodwill, ascribing every good thing that comes to us to His bounty. Nor do we stop when we have reached this point. The impulse of gratitude itself lifts our whole being into harmony with God; it becomes a prayer.

Automatically, too, many spoken prayers and pious deeds arise from this attitude. They are the flames that spark up out of the perpetual glow, that feed this glow, keeping it alive. Now we begin to “pray without ceasing” and “from a grateful heart praise God in hymns and psalms.” Now we begin to understand what the Apostle meant when he said: “Redeeming the time….Become not unwise, but understand what is the will of God….Be filled with the Holy spirit [the Spirit of love], singing and making melody in you hearts to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to God the Father” (Eph 5: 16-20).

A life of true inwardness can develop only out of a life of true attrition, and it expresses itself in unforced prayer, not merely in studied, memorized, spoken prayers, but in the attitude of soul, the desire for perpetual unity with God that springs straight from the heart and is completely drained of self. This desire automatically finds utterance in words without artifice, without studied form. Such spontaneous prayers are like flames that start up from the intense glow of abiding love. The labors, commotions, annoyances, temptations, and difficulties of everyday life are only incentives, food, as it were, for prayer. They direct our attention to God, materializing as prayer of gratitude, petition, or simply involuntary exclamations of love. Then we truly “live God” in all things all the time.

2. HOW INWARDNESS AND ACTIVITY CAN BE COMBINED

The greatest mistake we can make is to regard inwardness and activity as being mutually antagonistic. On this mistaken premise we try to arrange a compromise: prayer for inwardness, work for the active impulse. But they must not have anything to do with on another! Pious exercises are pushed into a corner of the day’s potential, completely cut off from the rest of life’s affairs. They are supposed to have influence on the soul only during the time allotted to them for that purpose. Prayer is likewise locked away in little drawers and compartments, only to be taken out for airing at certain times or as convenience permits. Thus, prayer becomes a short, transitory act, a momentary flight of pious aspiration, but not a powerful life-principle giving the soul a definite link-up and direction. It does not impregnate our thought or direct our actions. It is something quite unessential to our lives. Where this conception exists, there can never be a true union of inwardness and activity.

A second mistake: In our daily activities, often unconsciously, we do not primarily seek God and God’s pleasure. Although we may not be willing to admit it, we put ourselves first, seeking our own advantage, gain, honor, success, credit, and importance among men. We are forever trying to serve two masters. We are perpetually trying to do two things at once – to serve ourselves and at the same time save our souls. We act from the human standpoint and not truly from the standpoint of God, glorifying Him and directing all things to His will and pleasure. All too often we halt before the human standpoint even in the care of souls and in education, without penetrating to God’s intention and the actual purpose of our existence. The personal viewpoint-in the last analysis, selfishness – kills true inwardness just as it really kills all righteous activity.

A third mistake: We limit true inwardness – “prayer with out ceasing” (i.e., intercourse with God) – to attention, reason, and imagination, instead of making it a spirit that will take possession of our willpower, sweeping our soul and our whole being along with it. Inwardness is not only, and certainly not essentially, “thinking of God” or a convulsive effort to conjure up in our mind visions of God. It is a state of mind and will; it is love of God, a continuous urge to loving adoration. It is active love of God in the sense of works conforming to God’s will and of unforced, voluntary acts of prayers. We pray to God in just the proportion that we love God. Our inwardness extends as far as, and is as intense as, our love of God is sincere. We prove that by the sincerity with which we are willing to work and to suffer for His sake. How can we combine inwardness and activity? – By overcoming these three faults and eliminating them from our minds and our lives. This is the first step.

We can go a step farther and turn our daily life into a prayer: first by starting the day with Mass and the customary prayer and reflections and by interrupting our tasks from time to time for the prescribed religious practices; then by putting all that we have to do on a prayerful footing. Our attitude of prayer influences our activity if we bring our whole will to bear upon it. Thanks to this attitude we can exclude as much as possible from our lives anything that would be displeasing to God, even the smallest disloyalty or conscious imperfection, whether by intention, motive, or thought. Thanks to this attitude we can resolve to do everything in our power to perform our duties conscientiously, in conformity with the rules and directions and with complete submission of our own wish and will. Thanks to this attitude we can do our work faithfully and endure with utter resignation whatever unpleasantness, difficulty, annoyance or suffering it may involve, accepting patiently the trials of the place in life to which He has assigned us.

This attitude of completely merging our will with God’ is the state of constant payer to which we aspire; it makes of our lives one perpetual Gloria Patri, a loving “Hallowed be Thy name.” We pray all the time, because we see God in everything, and we unify our life with His. From this attitude opportunities will arise, quite of their own accord, to renew our acts of praise and gratitude; to express our joy in God’s nearness, in our complete surrender to His will, offering up our love as sacrifice and an act of adoration to Him. In this way we shall “pray without ceasing.”

Does this seem impossible or too difficult? Of course, “prayer without ceasing,” true inwardness, is not an undertaking we can treat lightly, taking it up “on the side,” as it were. It is not accomplished by reciting a lot of stock prayers and spending hours on our knees. If these are to serve true inwardness, they call for an attitude of soul that is possible only where hindrances that oppose prayer are swept aside ruthlessly and often with painful, relentless effort. The soul must attain a high degree of purity and freedom before the true spirit of prayer can take up permanent habitation there. How far have I gone toward the attainment of this goal?

From Benedict Bauer, In Silence with God, Scepter Publishers, 1997, pp. 150-158