‘Enter into your heart and you will pray.’ This is the formula Dermot Mansfield SJ gives us to tune into our own hearts where, he says, the Holy Spirit is already praying ‘with sighs too deep for words’.
Over the next number of months, I will be offering a series of thoughts on prayer. My hope is that you, the reader, will find some stimulation in the bits and pieces I offer you, and will find yourself personally encouraged in the efforts you make to pray.
Support network
I am convinced that all of us need to help one another in this business of prayer. I myself continue to be helped and inspired by others. And often when I am trying to help the various men and women who come looking for some kind of assistance, here for instance at Manresa Retreat House in Dublin, I find that their courage and searching is a real stimulus to my own faith and prayer.
Also, the simple Mass we have each day in our community chapel is truly an inspiration for prayer: the Mass itself, of course, being our best prayer, and leading us deeply into further prayer.
Childhood memories
Permit me to say a word about myself first. Straightaway, my mind goes back to early childhood spent in beautiful Cobh; and I picture my grandmother there, for whom prayer was as natural as breathing the air.
Later on, in Kilkenny, another picture comes before me: of a dear uncle of mine, a farmer, who used to pray the rosary all through Mass each Sunday. Mind you, that would not be recommended nowadays!
Then, I think of Portarlington, where my family eventually settled down, and whose church was truly a place of prayer for many people, especially the poor, in the 1950s.
Always I was conscious of a Carmelite aunt and uncle. I knew, somehow, that prayer was at the centre of their way of life. They were on my father’s side. On my mother’s side, another aunt had joined the Poor Clares, and was part of the founding group that left from Galway for Australia in 1951.
Incidentally, I have had the privilege of visiting her there twice in recent years. And I can say that prayer, as well as vibrant humanity, is certainly woven into the life of the Poor Clare sisters.
Naturally enough, all that example of prayer rubbed off on me somehow, especially during rather troubled teenage years. And when I joined the Jesuits at Emo in 1963, there was much help given on prayer, especially by our novice master, the late Father Patrick Cusack, whose personal kindness will never be forgotten by me.
Ordinary people
And, to bring things right up to date, I need to mention that each summer I help out in a West London parish, in Chiswick. And what most inspires me there? Apart from the great friendliness of people, what I find really helpful is their daily example of prayer. During every hour of the day you will notice men and women of all ages and backgrounds coming there, to the lovely Church of Our Lady of Grace, on the High Road in Chiswick.
As well, of course, they come to the Masses on Sundays, and in considerable numbers on weekdays, too. And at this stage in my own life, I can confidently say I find no better inspiration for myself than the example of so many people, high and low, in all sorts of circumstances and predicaments, simply coming to pray: to pray for themselves, for their families, for their neighbours, and for the world’s need.
Simple and profound
Now, out of all of this, I offer for your consideration one central thought, which I believe is the secret to prayer. It is this: To pray, all you need do is enter into your own heart. Enter there, into your own heart, within the innermost recesses of your own being, and you will find you are praying, or else can turn to prayer very easily.
It is as simple as that, as profound as that. It is as simple as that, and therefore so easy to shrug it off and pass on, to look for something more complicated. And, because it is also profound, and we often prefer to live on the surface of things, we can tend to leave prayer aside, or perhaps just ‘say a few prayers’, thinking that this is as far as we can go.
Enter into your heart, and you will pray. Why is that the secret of prayer? Why is that the secret of the lives of all those people whose prayer over a lifetime has influenced the likes of me? The answer is that, within each of us there is a wonderful mystery, and that mystery is nothing less than God’s grace and presence. Therefore, prayer goes on within the heart, since it is indeed the place of God. Prayer goes on, because Scripture tells us that God’s Holy Spirit is there, within us, the Spirit of love and of prayer. As St. Paul puts it, even when we are not sure how to pray or don’t know what to pray for, then the Spirit dwelling within us does the praying for us ‘with sighs too deep for words’ (Rom.8:26).
Tuning in
So, in a sense, all you or I need to do is ‘tune in’ to what is already going on within. I like to think of it that way, as a matter of ‘tuning in’. What I have to do each day, as best I can, is tune in to that ‘frequency’, where there is a wonderful melody or music within, and which is the prayer of the Holy Spirit resonating in my own heart. It is as easy as that!
But it is also difficult, and challenging, because of that sad state of affairs in which we are often not in touch with our own heart, but tend to live ‘outside’ somewhere on the surface of things. So we need to clear away the clutter and distractions, make some space for ourselves, attend to what is deep within, and allow our prayer to surface from there.
Then, whether I say the Our Father and the Hail Mary, or simply stop for a quiet time to remember people and their needs, or try to reflect on the Scripture readings I hear at Mass, or am moved by something beautiful in nature, or find myself very anxious and turn to God for reassurance: whatever I do, once it is from my heart, then that is good prayer.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (July 2006), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
