Lesson 1

Our Father who art in heaven

Hail Mary full of Grace

Bless us oh Lord, for these thy gifts

Lord, I don’t know how you’re going to get me through this but, here we go.

The question I most often get regardless of age, knowledge, culture, and gender is: “How do you pray?”

It’s a valid question, in fact, it is the most important question anyone can ask. And I’m always happy to teach people how prayer works. It doesn’t matter if they are a three year old or a 103 year old, we can all find ways to get “better” at praying.

But, how? Isn’t prayer just talking to God in your head? 

To answer that question, we need to take a step way back and explore what prayer actually is, and why it is so important. Let’s look at prayer through two specific lenses: philosophy and Sacred Scripture. 

We begin with a philosophical exploration of prayer. Aristotle once said, ”reason exhorts us to do what is best.” Many times, however, “what is best” is outside of our abilities. We see something in our immediate vicinity as “bad” and we desire to make it good, but have no ability to do so. Take poverty, for example. We all know there are less fortunate people in the world. We feel that tinge of guilt every time we see an infomercial telling us to help feed one child for a month with just pennies a day, or a Facebook ad asking us to donate money so villagers in a third world country can have access to water. Poverty is “bad.” Helping those in poverty is “good.”

The same goes for the poor themselves. They, too, obey the law that “reason exhorts us to do what is best.” The father whose wife and children are dying of starvation will work tirelessly to save them because he knows it is good. When he is unable to make end’s meet, he has no other recourse than to make a petition to someone who is able to help.

Reason exhorts us to do what is best. For both the rich and the poor, what is best is irradiating poverty altogether. This is something we cannot feasibly do. So, we have to look elsewhere to transform the world; we look to someone who is more powerful, more merciful, and more able to make the imperfect perfect. Wealthy donors and philanthropists crowdsource funds and resources to help those most in need and, unfortunately, the problem of poverty persists. So, we go to the mightiest of providers, God, to help us. In prayer, we come to the realization that, wealthy or not, we are all poor in his sight.

Being poor doesn’t necessarily mean that you are struggling financially. On the contrary, we are all poor in spirit, or at least we should consider ourselves to be. We are creations of a Creator, imperfect souls who feel a strange distrust of the world around us. We have an inclination that there’s more to this life than what we know. We ask ourselves questions like “How did the world come to be?” “What is my purpose?” and “Is there a God?” Ingrained into our psyche is a mystery novel in which we are the main characters in search of clues and, eventually we hope to find the answers. We can only hope that we are doing our part to be the protagonists of our stories and not the antagonists. 

The key to which side you belong to, the heroic side or the villainous side, has its fulcrum in prayer. According to Aquinas, “prayer is the interpreter of desire” (ST II-II, 83, 9) This means that, when we pray, we tell God what it is that we really want. He, in turn, tells us what we really should want, interpreting our desires and honing them to become more like his desires. We who are imperfect seek perfection from a higher authority. Hence, those who pray seek this perfection through communication with, or petition to, God. We make an ascent from our imperfections to He who is perfect in order to ask for guidance so that we can become more like Him, more perfect. 

Every human to have ever existed as well as every human who is to come understands this desire to some degree. The atheist and the agnostic are on the same ground as the Pope when it comes to prayer. The only things that make them different is their proximity to truth, which comes from the desire of the soul who wishes to know it, and their dedication to the arduous work of prayer. Those who pray commune with God regularly and thus attain knowledge which makes them more perfect. Meanwhile, those who don’t persevere in prayer lack that communion and thus, lack opportunities to depend of God, choosing instead to rely on their own, human powers.

Not all human powers are bad, though. God gave us our emotions, desires, sensations, will, and intellect for a reason- so that we might supersede our own abilities, and share in his eternal majesty both now and forever in an unending prayer. When we use them for our own purposes only, we become our own god. We cut ourselves off from the life-giving vine of the creator and believe that we can do everything on our own, no God needed.

That’s a deadly way to live.

Those who pray, however, achieve their desires. They satisfy their holy longings and truly live because they are connected with the vine and become his branches. Their lives produce fruit and their legacy lives on for eternity.

There are many methods to prayer, of course. Let’s explore those through our next lens – the Bible.

Jesus told us in one of his beatitudes “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 5:3). To be “poor in spirit” is to recognize that, as I mentioned before, that we are imperfect creatures seeking the perfect Creator. The way we approach our celestial Father, then, is through prayer. 

There are many ways through which we approach God through prayer. Some are deeper than others. For example, the Rosary said at the wake of a loved one’s funeral digs deeper into the soul than praying that your ice cream won’t melt so quickly in the summer heat that you won’t be able to eat it. If you are taking this course, then it’s likely you are pursuing that first kind of prayer, the kind that unites you to God more fully in word, thought, and deed. 

I can think of no better place to start than with Mary and Martha. Here’s how St. Luke described these two masters of contemplative and active prayer:

“As they continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary [who] sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” (Lk. 10: 38-42)

In the book Knowing the Love of God, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. writes, “The passive virtues of humility, obedience, and patience have been quite depreciated, while the active and social virtues that affirm personal initiative have been exalted.” We see this truth play out in the story of Mary and Martha as true as it was then as it is today. While Mary contemplates and spends intentional time with Christ, Martha is occupied with “doing things” and because of this, she puts the cart before the horse. Not ironically, our entire world does this:  we value action and production and consider deep thought, rest, even prayer itself as weak and insignificant. In the end, we define ourselves not by our eternal inheritance as adopted sons and daughters of God through Baptism, rather we define ourselves in the finite things of this world that we are capable of attaining – awards, prestige, notoriety, and productivity.

Jesus tells us, however, that if we truly desire to grow in a deeper relationship with God, then we must become more like Mary – he said, “go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you” (Mat. 6:6).

And so, the first step toward building up a stronger prayer life is to dig deep into the silence of your soul, so deep that the foundations of contemplation can take root there. Contemplation, then, more specifically an intentional state of contemplation, is the first step toward developing a more profound prayer life, for it is only in this preliminary thought that “the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings” (Rom. 8: 26).

The next step? Again, Jesus explains:

“In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words… This is how you are to pray:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread;

and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors;

and do not subject us to the final test,

but deliver us from the evil one.”

(Mat. 6: 7, 9-13)

St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote that  “In the Lord’s Prayer not only do we ask for all that we may rightly desire,” Aquinas writes, “but also in the order wherein we ought to desire them, so that this prayer not only teaches us to ask, but also directs all our affections” (II-II q 83, a 9). Indeed, this masterpiece of prayer is essentially every prayer that we could ever fathom placed into one, linguistic paragon. This makes since considering it is the only prayer that God Himself taught to us. 

The first fruits of contemplation is the expression of our thoughts and desires to God through language. Whether they are words in our heads or words that we vocalize through our mouths, we express to God our feelings, our desires, and our love through words. The second step, then, to developing a deeper prayer life is to align our words with the words that Christ taught us in the Lord’s Prayer. 

Making your prayer align with the Lord’s Prayer is quite easy to do because anything that you could ever hope to communicate with God is already embedded into its words. 

Want to praise God? 

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name!”

Want to ask for your will to align better with his?

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!”

Want to ask him of him a petition of any kind?

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

Want to ask him for forgiveness or the strength to forgive others?

“And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Want to grow more in holiness and to avoid the darkness of the world?

“Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.”

Every prayer, whether it be to praise God, to thank Him, or to ask of Him a petition, is found in the Our Father, which makes it the first way everyone begins to speak to Him in prayer, whether they know it or not.

Then comes the tricky part: listening.

In the next chapter, I’ll show you how to open your mind and soul to the response that God gives you after contemplating and expressing yourself to him through prayer. 

Until then, be intentional about your prayer life. Schedule a block of time each day to go to your inner room, close the door, and contemplate the spirit as it begins to intercede within your soul. As God told Jeremiah, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jer. 33:3).

In your silent contemplation, listen to the words the Spirit wishes to communicate to you. If you persevere, he’ll introduce to the Word made flesh: Jesus Christ. Once you meet him, your prayer life will never be the same. 

In our last lesson, we learned that contemplative thought leads to the word of truth which is ultimately the holy Spirit interceding within us to teach us something, to tell us something about ourselves, to help us discover the one thing we really need in this life and the next – faith.

Cardinal Sarah wrote in his book, The Day is Now Far Spent that, “Faith grows in an intense life of prayer and contemplative silence. It is nourished and strengthened in a daily face-to-face meeting with God and in an attitude of adoration and silent contemplation. It is professed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy, lived out in keeping the Commandments. It achieves its growth through an interior life of adoration and prayer” (The Day is Now Far Spent, Sarah pg. 26).

Last lesson was titled Thought to Word, this chapter carries over into then next phase of deep prayer – word to act. The words of our prayers are manifested in the acts that follow. Hence, the words strengthen our desire to love.

St. James tells us “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (Ja. 2: 14). He later answers that question by writing, “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (Ja 2:15-17).

If we interpret this passage properly, the words themselves show that the we know the word in truth when we recognize that our brothers and sisters are in need of clothes. Hence, we respond with words of encouragement “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well!” But if we don’t accompany our knowledge of truth with a proper application of it in our works, then we have no charity, which ultimately means we have no true relationship with Christ and thus, no deep prayer life at all. If all we are doing is contemplating and receiving truth, but not acting on it, we are, as Saint James put it quite bluntly, dead!

But if we do respond with actions from our knowledge of truth, then we are capable of living and, more importantly, loving. This love is manifested through the virtue of charity. Charity in giving of ourselves freely to another – Bishops to their diocese, priests to their parishes, the single to their communities, spouses to one another and to their children, and all Catholics to those most in need of God’s mercy. Whether the spirit moves you through prayer to start an apostolate, enter a religious order, or even just buying a sandwich for the starving beggar on the street, we all play the role the spirit guides us toward fulfilling. But we can never do it unless we have first contemplated the Spirit’s presence within us, heard its word of truth in our lives, and finally acted upon it with love.

St. John Damascene once wrote that prayer is “the unveiling of the mind before God.” When we show charity to those in need, we unveil our soul to God most profoundly. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the multitude of graces we receive either in this life, or the next. The letter of Hebrews reminds us,“So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help” (Heb. 4:16).

So, how do you “act?” How do you get started with the “doing” part of prayer? How do you practice the virtue of charity in your every day life?

Those questions can be answered in different ways depending on where you are in life, but they all have one thing in common- the imitation of Christ. The missionary priest will have different options to serve others in a Christ-like way than will the stay-at-home mom or the single college student. There are, however, acts that every human being can do in their every day lives, regardless of age, status, gender, and wherever they land on the scale of “holiness” (if there is such a thing). These acts are the ones that Christ lived to their perfection. They are called the Works of Mercy

Corporal Works of Mercy

Feed the Hungry

Give Drink to the Thirsty

Clothe the Naked

Shelter the Homeless

Visit the Sick

Visit the Imprisoned

Bury the Dead

Let’s explore the lives of a couple of saints who exemplified the corporal works of mercy to a heroic degree.

Visit the imprisoned:  Antonia Brenner

Antonina was the last person you’d expect to become a religious sister. She spent most of her live “living it up” in Beverly Hills during the 1950s and 60s. She was married and divorced twice and had 7 children to which she dedicated her early years. Then, one night, she dreamed she was being executed on Calvary, but she was saved at the last minute by Jesus, who offered her to touch his cheek. She didn’t feel worthy, and when she woke up, she felt the need to prove her love for her savior. After her children grew older, she tried to join a religious order, but was refused on account of her marital status. So, she took matters into her own hands and followed providence to the most notorious jail in Tijuana, Mexico, La Mesa Prison, where she literally and figuratively “turned herself in.” She became a voluntary inmate and suffered with the incarcerated women in solidarity. She was given her own cell which was no different than those who committed crimes to earn them, the same food, and she lived the same secluded life. She won the hearts of prisoners and guards alike under the moniker Mother Antonia. In fact, she even formed a religious order for women like her, divorced or widowed, but willing to live with the imprisoned in order to save their souls. It took several years, and several acts of mercy, but the Eudist Servants of the Eleventh Hour were formally recognized by Bishop of the Diocese of Tijuana in 2003, ten years prior to Mother Antonia’s heavenly reward.

This remarkable woman epitomized the corporal work of mercy of visiting the imprisoned, and she’s a tremendous example of what a deep prayer life can lead to us becoming.

Another heroic woman who exemplified a whole slew of corporal works of mercy to their highest degree is Mother Theresa. Every morning, she’d wake up early to celebrate Mass with her fellow Missionaries of Charity, spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament in silent prayer, and the proceed to comb the streets of Calcutta, India searching for any soul that could not help themselves. Since Calcutta was the epicenter of poverty in the country, she didn’t have to look far – everywhere she went there was the suffering and destitute, men, women and children alike. She’d take them from their poverty, bathe them, give them new clothes, and feed them. For those who were sick, she’s provide the medical care they needed to survive. Her intense charity was a result of her even more intense prayer life in which she saw Jesus Christ Himself in the needy of of the world.

Note, I showcased these Saints not to give you a comparison complex and fill you with scruples. On the contrary, I wanted to show you the degree by which they loved, and that you are called to love to the highest degree you are able. The corporal works of mercy are necessary acts of charity for anyone who desires to have a deep prayer life.

Another necessary set of acts to help nourish your prayer life are the Spiritual Works of Mercy. 

Spiritual Works of Mercy

Admonish the Sinner

Instruct the Ignorant

Counsel the Doubtful

Bear Wrongs Patiently

Forgive Offenses Willingly

Comfort the Afflicted

Pray for the Living and the Dead

Again, let’s take a look at a couple of Saints that exemplified some of these to a heroic degree:

St. Francis de Sales’ book, Introduction to the Devout Life, is the spiritual works of mercy made perfect in text. Of course, the spiritual works of mercy are best practiced in contemplative prayer and charitable act, but if your looking for a book that narrates how one priest was able to instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, admonish sinners, and a whole slew of other merciful words, his book magnetically does just that. Let’s look at a snippet that illustrates just how he was able to pull it off:

“But, in fact, all true and living devotion presupposes the Love of God; and indeed it is neither more nor less than a very real Love of God, though not always of the same kind; for that Love, while shining on the soul we call grace, which makes us acceptable to His Divine Majesty; when it strengthens us to do well, it is called Charity; but when it attains its fullest perfection, in which it not only leads us to do well, but to act carefully, diligently, and promptly, then it is called Devotion. The ostrich never flies, the hen rises with difficulty, and achieves but a brief and rare flight, but the eagle, the dove, and the swallow are continually on the wing, and soar high. Even so sinners do not rise toward God, for all their movements are earthly and earthbound. Well-meaning people, who have not as yet attained a true devotion, attempt a manner of flight by means of their good actions, but rarely, slowly, and heavily; while really devout men rise up to God frequently, and with a swift and soaring wing.

In short, devotion is simply a spiritual activity and liveliness by means of which Divine Love works in us, and causes us to work briskly and lovingly; and just as charity leads us to a general practice of all God’s Commandments, so devotion leads us to practice them readily and diligently. And therefore we cannot call him who neglects to observe all God’s Commandments either good or devout, because in order to be good, a man must be filled with love, and to be devout, he must further be very ready and apt to perform the deeds of love.”

Spiritual works of mercy were De Sale’s driving force in his priesthood. His contemplation coupled with his close-knit relationship with his flock made it possible for him to “council others with the same consolation” he had been given. This is what we are meant to do as Catholics – to take our own life experiences and to give away the wisdom we’ve gleaned from them, both in our successes and our failures, to others. 

One final Saint worth delving into is Servant of God Lucia de Jesus Rosas dos Santos who was determined to get as many souls to heaven as possible, souls both living and dead. She was one of the three children Marian visionaries of Fatima which took place in 1917 in Portugal. At one point during a vision, Mary showed Lucia and the other two visionaries a glimpse of Hell. Here’s what Lucia saw in her own words:

“As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly: You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”

The vision was clearly soul shattering, so much so that Lucia asked our Lady about two souls who had already died. She wanted to make sure that they were saved from eternal hellfire. Mary responded that one was in heaven, but the other, a woman by the name of Amelia, was in purgatory, and she’s remain there until the end of the world.

These two stories illustrate the need to pray for the living and the dead, something Lucia did for the remainder of her life as a religious sister. It’s something we must do too, regardless of our vocation – we must pray for one another, fast, and sacrifice in order that our suffering might become redemptive, a spiritual transfusion of grace that pours over those most in need and brings them closer to Christ and the eternal reward he offers us all. Only those with a deep prayer life can successfully make these reparations in their own souls, but also in those of the living and the dead of Christ’s Church.

As you can see, the effects of deep prayer are manifested in the soul who is devoted to God in thought, word, and deed, and in that order: we must first contemplate the spirit, understand its truth, and act upon it with charity. When we succeed in doing these three things, we become more like Christ. Furthermore, step into a spiritual dimension that remains hidden to most people in this world. In next chapter, I’ll show you how to access this portal that paints earth with the majesty of heaven. 

In my the first two lessons, I talked about how a deep prayer life begins with silent contemplation with the Spirit, who then teaches us and consoles us with divine truth, which fills our souls with an abundance of love that overflows into the charity we manifest through our actions. It is at that point that a very special thing occurs in the soul- you start seeing things not with your own eyes, but with spiritual insight. 

Brother Lawrence, author of the quaint, but profoundly insightful book Practicing the Presence of God, described this sense in the following way. He wrote, “My most usual method is this simple attention, an affectionate regard for God to whom I find myself often attached with greater sweetness and delight than that of an infant at the mother’s breast. To choose an expression, I would call this state the bosom of God, for the inexpressible sweetness which I taste and experience there. If, at any time, my thoughts wander from it from necessity or infirmity, I am presently recalled by inward emotions so charming and delicious that I cannot find words to describe them. Please reflect on my great wretchedness, of which you are fully informed, rather than on the great favors God does one as unworthy and ungrateful as I am. As for my set hours of prayer, they are simply a continuation of the same exercise.”

The recognition of the presence of God in Brother Lawrence’s life is a gateway to understanding the secret spiritual portal that blurs the lines between heaven and earth. Essentially, the entirety of nature has existence. This existence is dependent on God. Regardless of the obvious differences between these creations, their essence, or the thing that makes them completely unique among all other creations, can be traced to a single being, God the Creator who is being Himself. 

This is one of the great epiphanies in the soul who practices deep prayer – to recognize in every created object, every visible and invisible thing, and in every life, the God who has deemed all of this worthy of existing. It is the portal of the spiritual life that allows us make the petition “thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven,” a reality, because we can see the glimpses on heaven in every blade of grass, every meal, every smile, and yes, even in every suffering. 

The fullness of this realization cannot be acquired alone. There isn’t a Saint to ever live who has ever reached the heights of prayer without the aid of three specific prayers which I consider the three keys to opening the earthly portal to the divine vision. These three keys build on the individual’s thoughts, words, and deeds, and weaves them into the very fabric of Christ. 

The first key is the simplest, but a tremendously powerful tool in developing a deep prayer life. It’s the Rosary, which was previously known as the Marian Psalter. Before the Rosary was given to St. Dominic, and before Our Lady instructed him on how to use it, the faithful would pray the 150 psalms every day. Those who were literate could do this effectively, those who couldn’t read, however could only listen. For both groups, the practice was time consuming, so much so that another form of the psalter was adapted in which the faithful would pray the Hail Mary 150 times instead of reading each psalm. They’d fashion 150 beads or rocks onto strings to keep track of their Aves. The 150 was later broken into three sets of 50, one set for the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. Then, Our Lady appeared to St. Dominic in 1208 and taught him how to unite these 150 aves into 3 sets of 5 mysteries which we know today as the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries. Later, in 2002, Pope St. John Paul II would add the Luminous mysteries to the Rosary giving us even more ways to unite our thoughts and words to Christ in contemplative prayer.

Pope Paul VI once wrote that the Rosary is “the compendium of the entire Gospel” (Marialis Cultus, 46). When we pray the rosary and contemplate their mysteries, we dig deeper into our prayer lives with Mary as our guide. She takes our hands and teaches us the ways of perfection, the same ways she taught her Son, with whom we journey through the Gospel as we meditate upon each individual mystery of the rosary. 

St. Paul VI speaks highly of the recitation of the Rosary, as do many, and I mean MANY other Saints, but he also asks that this devotion to our Lady not be the entirety, not the foundation, of a deep prayer life. “This very worthy devotion [the Rosary] should not be propagated in a way that is too one-sided or exclusive. The Rosary is an excellent prayer, but the faithful should feel serenely free in its regard.”

What does Pope St. Paul VI recommend more than the rosary to establish a deeper prayer life? The answer is the second key to unlocking a deep prayer life: the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office.

The Liturgy of the Hours is a daily, seven-part method of prayer that all priests are required to pray throughout their day. They are morning prayer, mid-morning prayer, the Office of Readings, midday prayer, mid-afternoon prayer, evening prayer, and night prayer. Each of those are divided into sub-parts that cover various psalms, readings from scripture, and writings from the Saints. Each liturgical season, the readings and prayers change to help the reader delve deeper into the mysteries of those seasons. 

The thing I love about the Liturgy of the Hours is the fact that at any given hour of the day, priests, religious, and even some lay Catholics from every continent are praying them, perpetually united in spirit while separated only by time zones. It’s a microcosm of heaven on earth to know that souls are constantly praising God for His mercy through the Divine Office. 

While it is required by priests, the Liturgy of the Hours is not something that should not be taken lightly by the lay Catholic. It takes a lot of time and discipline to tend to the routine. That’s why it is recommended that lay Catholics not adopt each of the seven parts into their busy lives, but just two- morning and evening prayer. This is the requirement for ordained Deacons and for most Third Order religious and it is a doable option for Catholics in the lay state. Although, if you have a lot of free time and desire, I’m not going to deny you the chance to pray more through this beautiful method. 

St. Paul VI reminds us that this ever-present method of praising God in our daily lives is “the high point which family prayer can reach” precisely because it unites us with our Catholic family all around the world at every hour of the day. 

And so, the Rosary and the Divine Office work as perfect companions in unlocking a deeper prayer life. Pope St. Paul VI reiterates this when he wrote, ”But there is no doubt that, after the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, the high point which family prayer can reach, the Rosary should be considered as one of the best and most efficacious prayers in common that the Christian family is invited to recite.”

We’ve uncovered the power behind two of the keys that help unlock a deeper prayer life. The third key, however, is the most powerful of all: 

The Mass.

Padre Pío once said that “every Holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects,  abundant spiritual and material graces which we, ourselves, do not know… It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do so without the Holy Mass.” he’s right, because in the Mass, we experience the source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324-1327) in the Eucharist. 

There are countless biblical, philosophical, even anthropological tie-ins that we experience during a single Mass, too much to fit into one single chapter, but let’s explore the most import part, the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and see how it provides for us an outpouring of grace that fills in the depths of our prayer life. 

The Eucharist, according to Catholic doctrine, is Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity. It is “real food and real drink” (Jn 6:55). It is the biggest leap of faith a Christian can make, for it takes a well-prepared mind and soul to accept that Our Lord not only comes to us through the bread and wine at Mass, but he becomes us, and we Him, in the act of communion. It is through the most intimate act of receiving that God gives to us the entire universe, every mystical and natural form of existence, in the single wafer that is his essence. Through the reception of this most holy meal, we pay tribute to His ultimate sacrifice and thus nourish our bodies and strengthen our souls to persevere just as he persevered, to suffer with hope, to proclaim the good news with joy, to live a life of heroic virtue. 

Pope Paul the VI said that the Mass is the most perfect form of prayer. It is communal wherein the faithful of the Church militant gather as well as the Church triumphant. St. John Chrysostom once wrote that “When Mass is being celebrated, the sanctuary is filled with countless angels who adore the Divine Victim immolated on the altar.” And we who are unable to witness these invisible phenomena are at the same time a part of an even more mystical phenomenon that happens within our bodies and souls when we receive the very Christ that the angels cannot, for they are pure spirit, and we, like Christ, are a fusion of body and spirit. So much so that Pope Saint  plus X once wrote “If the Angels could envy, they would envy us for Holy Communion.” 

So we, who are below the angels in many ways, are given the possibility of rising with them and sharing in an even more intimate relationship with Christ than they – to commune with him, to share in his body, blood, soul and divinity.

If the Mass doesn’t deepen your prayer life, then nothing ever will. If you feel it is boring, repetitive, and regimented, then I’d recommend doing a deep dive into studying this most perfect form of prayer.

In the meantime, continue to deepen your prayer life by using the three keys mentioned in this chapter: the rosary, the Divine Office, and most importantly, the Holy Mass heard with devotion. In these prayerful practices, you’ll complete the cycle of contemplation to word, from word to deed, from deed to essence, and in my next and final chapter in this book on deep prayer, I’ll teach you how to go from essence to eternity. 

Welcome to the final chapter on Deep Prayer. Before we get into it, I wanted to take a quick moment to remind you that prayer is never perfected- we spend a lifetime practicing. It’s a lot like a basketball player’s practice regimen- he or she can spend countless hours in the gym perfecting a jump shot, and when it comes to the game, they’re likely going to miss some shots. No player has ever believed that they would make every single shot they ever took in a game or in practice, and it’s healthy to take this attitude when pursuing a deeper prayer life. We simply cannot do it perfectly all of the time. What we can do is practice, and just as in the case of the basketball player putting countless hours in the gym, so too must we practice our prayer as often as possible. Practice is the only way to get good at anything- including prayer.

We’ve established that there is a process by which deeper prayer is achieved. We start with the silence of contemplation, then move on to the understanding of the truth, then proceed to the willful act of charity, and finally, we reach the finale in the methods that mother Church has taught us in the Rosary, the Divine Office, and, most importantly, the Mass where heaven truly comes down to earth in the form of the Eucharist. But, is that the end of the line? Isn’t there more?

Always.

The thing is, most people don’t truly want the “more,” because the next step in the process of deep prayer is one that is present throughout the entirety of our lives – pain. 

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? 

No one is good but God alone.

You know the commandments: You shall not kill;

you shall not commit adultery;

you shall not steal;

you shall not bear false witness;

you shall not defraud;

honor your father and your mother.” 

He replied and said to him,

“Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.”

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him,

“You are lacking in one thing.

Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor

and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 

At that statement his face fell,

and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

-Mk 10: 17-22

Note how, just before replying to the young man in that Gospel reading, the narrator makes sure to include the line “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…”

To those whom Jesus loves, he gives to them a cross.

Jesus told His disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mat. 16:24-25). Self-denial, then, is the final step toward attaining a deeper prayer life because it requires us to suffer and to use this suffering as a catalyst to a deeper relationship with Christ. As St. Catherine of Siena once said, Suffering and sorrow increase in proportion to love.”

Unfortunately, many people don’t know this and, consequently, they don’t want to suffer. I know I didn’t:

In March of 2020, the entire world stopped due to the Covid pandemic. That fall, I was teaching 6th grade full time. My wife had just given birth to our fifth child. I was writing my second novel. And to top it all off, we were moving houses. Needless to say, we were overwhelmed: I had to prepare both in-person and online lessons for my students who were dipping in and out of quarantine. My wife and I also had to teach our own kiddos at home whose virtual learning experience was hectic, burdensome, and a hard on them emotionally. On top of that, we were sleepless with the newborn, and constantly on-the-go to get our new house ready to be lived in. To make matters worse, our Church was closed to the public and we were only allowed to celebrate Mass virtually. No community. No real presence. And no access to the Sacraments, which meant no Eucharist.

Little by little, the parish started allowing small groups to enter the building for Mass. We remained at home for all but two Sunday’s for an entire year to avoid the possibility of being contaminated and spreading the disease to our children and my mother-in-law who lived with us. 

After the first month, I started to feel the effects of not being to celebrate Mass in my soul. My prayer life was non-existent due to the many things I had to do, and even in those rare moments of silence, I was too exhausted to offer up anything but a Hail Mary said without the least bit of devotion. It got to the point that I stopped praying all together because I had convinced myself that prayer was unnecessary for my survival. I didn’t need it. I justified this decision by saying that the hectic acts I strung together haphazardly to serve my family and students was my prayer. I had had enough of the pain and suffering, the last thing I needed to do was sacrifice more time and energy to pray – I was already doing so much! 

In retrospect, however, I realized that I was refusing to ask for the graces necessary to complete those tasks in the right way. You see, I relied on my own strength, not God’s, and as a result I plummeted into a darkness that overtook me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It was one of the darkest moments of my life, and at the center of it all was this void where prayer once was. I had no communion with God, not spiritually in prayer nor sacramentally in the Eucharist. I was lost.

I eventually was helped out of this hole by the prayers of my family and some very close personal friends. I managed to prioritize prayer, which made all of the difference in the world. In fact, I discovered that in my suffering, I was a more loyal child of God because in my weakness, I re-discovered He who made himself weak for me on the cross. Many people don’t feel comfortable looking upon the beaten and bloodied crucified Christ. They avoid it like the Apostles instead of welcome it like the Apostle John. It took me a long time to learn what St. John knew – that in order to reach the next level of holiness, I’d need to learn to pray at the foot of the cross and, perhaps in the future, rise higher still and become the one who is nailed to it. 

The moral of my story is that many people are like me in that they think that pain and suffering are a detriment to their prayer life. We think that positive human emotions lead to a deep faith and, while that is true, we must never depreciate the worth that negative emotions can provide our faith. In fact, it is precisely in these dark times that we gain the most graces, but we must change our mindset and believe it. As Job said, “We accept good things from God; should we not accept evil?” (Job 2:10).

Paradoxically, the biggest threat to your prayer life is also your greatest tool in achieving a closer relationship with Christ- namely your pain. This is what St. Paul meant when he wrote “Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). The mystery of suffering provides the sturdiest bridge to holiness, so it is in our best interest to harness our emotions and cross it with our entire trust in God. 

This process varies in difficulty for every person because, while we all suffer, some suffer more than others. In fact, some suffer to a degree of unbelief; they can’t believe in a God who would allow so much suffering to exist in the world, much worse when these evil happen to them personally. The loss of a child due to brain cancer or the loss of a spouse in a freak accident. How can one possibly remain faithful when their souls are shaken to such extremes?

Because we have a Savior who suffered to even greater extremes. 

St. Peter: “In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:6-7). In our suffering, we unite ourselves with Christ crucified and, as a result, we share in his resurrection, a mystery of faith that is seldom contemplated for we tend to avoid it. 

And yet, his is how the deepest of prayer lives progress; through suffering. Like in life, we must all pass through the scourge of death, so too do we end this course on the note that our sufferings are what bring us closest to Christ, because in them we deny ourselves and become nailed to our crosses with the God who accompanies us in every moment, both good and bad. It is the secret of Christian happiness that we are able to find a mystical joy in our tears, a paradoxical sense of the divine in the depths of our frustrations. A balance that holds our difficulties and pain on one hand, and on the other the graces of God that far outweigh our imperfections and pain. 

You must first believe, however, that this is possible. Hence, the process begins anew with your petition to the spirit in contemplative silence. Deep prayer, then, is a cycle that both starts and ends in contemplation. In fact, life itself mirrors that same cycle – before we are born, we are silent in our non-existence, mere contemplative thoughts in the mind of God. During life, we discover truths and produce a multitude of acts, both charitable and evil. And when we die, we return to the contemplative mind of God and dwell within it, and within Him, for eternity. 

With such everlasting  joy as our final destination, it’s nice to know that we can catch glimpses of our eternal reward through prayer – the deeper the prayer, the closer to heaven we arrive. On that final day when Our Lord wraps us in His eternal embrace, we will have known that touch already, having experienced it a million times over in our contemplation, our words, our deeds, and our sufferings, we will have known it through the love he shares with us in every prayer.