Why I Pray: My Journey Into The Power and Purpose of Prayer
Prayer is as natural to a human person as is breathing, eating, sleeping and loving. For the philosopher, the poet and every human person, prayer is a connection to awe and wonder, and to all that is true, good and beautiful. Prayer opens the individual person, body and soul, to the infusion of Grace, the Gift of Divine Life and Love, which leads to the potential for human flourishing. This potential becomes efficacious when one then acts upon the Gift Received and so Becomes a sincere gift of self to others. This manifestation of love builds up the City of God, the Body of Christ, and so fulfills the very meaning and purpose of our lives.
The default position of the person who does not pray and rejects the Divine Gift is a body and soul closed to the infusion of Grace. One cannot give what is not possessed and the potential for human flourishing is diminished by sin and death. Living in “disconnection” like a cut-flower the human person grasps for life in a futile attempt to replace infinite grace with the finite things of this world. Human beings become ravenous creatures, lustful creatures, as all attempts to build a city upon a foundation of sin and death, fail to satisfy the deepest desires of the human heart.
The human heart was made for more. That is why I pray.
“The reason, however, why the philosopher may be likened to the poet is this: both are concerned with the marvelous.” –Thomas Aquinas
My friend Jimmy Patridge had come home from Vietnam without his legs, the sexual revolution was in full swing, the murder of the unborn become a right that was codified into law. On top of that no-fault divorce left me wondering about the meaning of life and love. I wondered how the love between two people, once so beautiful and promising, could turn to dislike and even to hatred. I saw the negative effect that divorce had on my childhood friends. Then came the sexual abuse scandal in the Church and we were warned, for good reason it turned out, that the government could not be trusted.
At seventeen, the oldest of five boys, I felt confused, boxed in and anxious. I was working 3:00-11:00 PM most nights as a chef’s assistant in a large hotel kitchen after school. My family needed the money; besides, the world of work brought me a sense of satisfaction and an escape for my troubled mind.
I began to wonder, is this all there is? The pain and horror of war, love reduced to sex, marriages that could end, work to pay the bills and perhaps even to forget.
