By Most Rev. Dr. Yvon Ambroise Bishop of Tuticorin –
When we give our time to God in our day to day life in spite of our busy schedule God appreciates our gesture of giving time generously to God. If we have a lively faith in God, which begets a total confidence in Him, prayer will be a natural sequence. It is our intense faith-energy that could meet several challenges to prayer, e.g. our own impressions leading us, our prejudices, the ideas received from others or books, etc. This faith-energy is the basis of prayer and works in different ways in our lives.
Faith-energy emerges from our belief in the real presence and encounter with God through prayer. We must fully believe that independent of what we could feel: of our merits, of our preparation, of our capacity to entertain very good thoughts and of whatever we have in our interior self we must accept and realize the following. God is there very close to each one of us. He looks at me and loves me. He is there not because we deserve it or feel but because He promised it to us very clearly in Mt 6:6. Further He said in Jn 6:37 ―All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out‖. Much before we put ourselves in the presence of God He was waiting for us with open arms to embrace us. God appreciates it much more than we desire it.
Faithfulness and Perseverance in our Prayer Schedule
When we want to give time to God in prayer the important thing is to see whether we are very faithful to it and persevere in it. Before we worry about the quality of our prayer to be rich in experience and to give us satisfaction we need to learn to be faithful everyday to that practice of setting a time for prayer and persevere in it. When we love someone in any capacity but with true dedication what matters more is our faithfulness to our spending time with the person and persevere in it by not making it occasionally. A true friend or a beloved would like that one is faithful to the relationship by giving regularly time and persevere in it.
Fidelity and perseverance would surely improve the quality of our prayer which is only a consequence and not the cause. Let me remark that once in a way praying very fervently for hours will not go a long way. Hence the first temptation of satan is to discourage us telling: you are already pious why should you regularly spend time for it? Hence we have to take a firm decision that at any cost we shall not abandon the rhythm of prayer, planned in our life everyday at a particular time. Let us understand that there is no true love without fidelity to it and by not being regularly faithful to it. How could we pretend to love God very much without having regular prayer schedule every day in our life? Occasional prayer with intense fervour does not help us in the long term.
Purity of Intention
If we have a strong faith-energy to love God and is faithful to give him time, it gives a positive qualitative colour to the purity of intention. It signifies that a person loves God not for one‘s own satisfaction but to please God who in His infinite love and fidelity has deigned to relate to the person as His beloved and protects the person by His loving embrace. When Jesus said ―Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God‖ (Mt 5:8), to my understanding this ‗pure in heart‘ is not a situation of absence of sins. What He meant was what pleases God is to love Him not for one‘s own satisfaction and joy but to please God. This is what is called unconditional love, a love that does not search for itself anything but the pleasure of the beloved. Without this quality of our love if we search for our own satisfaction we would abandon prayer when we derive no happiness from it and are left dry and arid.
To those who love God ardently and with a regular schedule of prayer, God purifies that love with His own means. It is called ―The dark night of the soul‖ God withdraws all consolations and satisfaction from our hearts during those regular moments of prayer. We feel that we experience nothing but a dryness of heart.
However long we spend with God, we feel the same. It may give us the temptation to give up prayer (because we draw nothing from it – a self seeking love), or a sense of frustration and anger to God or getting angry on ourselves as if we have done something wrong. It depends on each personality. This dark hour of the soul may go on for days and weeks
The great mystics and saints like John of the cross, St.Theresa of Avila, St.Thérèse of Lisieux, St.Faustina, etc. have gone through this purifying experience given by God. We should become aware of that and willingly accept it because it is always only for a period and used by God as a means of bringing in us the purity of intention. This enhances the quality of our prayer life. Hence this purity of intention is a demanding need but it is very liberating and makes us happy. It may not be easy at the very beginning itself but in course of time and experience of God it would be arrived at to a great extent.