“What is prayer?” That question was recently posed to me by a new catechumen just beginning his preparation for baptism through the RCIA. It’s a question that is well worth the time for any Christian to consider. Prayer is as essential to our spiritual life as oxygen is to our physical life, and just like the air we breathe, it’s easy to take prayer for granted.
There are many definitions of prayer, but my personal favorite is the one offered by St. John Damascene that is quoted in the Catechism: “Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God” (CCC 2559). This definition is my favorite for three reasons.
The first reason is because it’s short and easy to remember.
The second reason is because it speaks directly to our nature and purpose as human beings: the big questions of what we are and what we are for. The Church teaches that we are creatures made in God’s image (Gen 1:26-27), and our purpose is to know, love and serve God. But what does this actually mean? We don’t physically resemble God. Yes, God acquired a body like ours as part of the human nature he assumed in Jesus Christ, and in that way can be said to resemble us.
But God as God is pure spirit. So in what way are we like him?
Traditionally, our likeness to God has been considered in terms of the two aspects of human nature that we share with God (and the angels) that we do not share with the rest of physical creation: reason and free will. Animals have a certain intelligence, to be sure, but not reason. Chimpanzees may make simple tools, but they don’t perform mathematics. There are no chimp philosophers or dolphin scientists. More to the point, they don’t write poetry, build monuments or engage in religious worship. This is because animals can’t conceptualize abstract ideals. Human beings can, because we possess the divine attribute of reason. In this way, we are like God.
We also have free will, unlike animals that operate on instinct. Animals can only do what comes natural to them in any given situation. Animals cannot sin, nor can they truly love (I acknowledge many dog owners would disagree with me on that point). Because human beings are free, we are morally responsible for our choices.
So we can sin, and we can love. Having free will makes us like God because God is the most free being there is. Nothing outside of God constrains His will.
Why would God endow us with these two divine attributes of reason and freedom? The answer is found in our purpose, which is to know, love and serve God – to relate to Him not merely as creatures to their creator, but as free, rational persons relate to one another, like the three Persons of the Trinity. God gives us a rational mind so that we might know Him, and a free will so that we might love Him. We serve God by putting that knowledge and love into action.
Philosophically speaking, the mind is the seat of our intellect and the heart is the seat of our will, our desire. To raise your mind and heart to God is to direct those divine aspects of our nature back to God, who is their origin and their proper end. To pray is to think about God and to love God and in so doing to find our fulfillment as human beings.
The third reason I favor this definition of prayer is that it makes sense of the scriptural command to pray without ceasing (1 Thes 5:17). If our idea of prayer is restricted to what we do in church, or on our knees by our bedside, this command seems impossible. But we can and should think about and desire God at all times – at work, at play and at rest. In fact, if there is anything you can’t do while thinking about and loving God, then you shouldn’t be doing it! This does not mean, of course, that we can dispense with dedicated times of prayer. If our aim is to have our hearts and minds raised to God at all times, we must be intentional about raising them to God at particular times.
It is a good practice to begin and end each day by setting aside all distractions to focus your mind and heart on God specifically for a time, to help you keep God on your mind and in your heart throughout the day. In this way it is possible to progress from simply being a person who prays, to being a truly prayerful person.
Deacon Matthew Newsome is the Catholic campus minister at Western Carolina University and the regional faith formation coordinator for the Smoky Mountain Vicariate.