Importance of Personal Prayer

JESUS PRAYS TO THE FATHER.
Image from picturesofjesus4you via google.com

Our last discussion under the Pillar of Prayer is about the Three Kinds of Prayer: liturgical, community and personal. Today we shall discuss a bit about the importance of personal prayer. The idea about the five [5] things to consider about how important personal prayer have been taken from the talk delivered by Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship during the 13th Annual Symposium presented by the Holy Trinity Apostolate in Detroit, Michigan, USA on March 6, 2010.

According to the Cardinal, the following important points must be considered with regards to personal prayer:

[1] Personal prayer is important in the promotion of our living relationship with God.

[2] Personal prayer promotes and improves our participation in the liturgical and community prayers.

[3] Personal prayer makes our religion more genuine, more personal and more deeply rooted.

[4] Personal prayer can best suit a gathering and an occasion.

[5] Personal prayer can best express the circumstances for which it is offered.

Now we shall discuss these one by one:

[1] Personal prayer is a great aid in promoting our personal living relationship with God, we may refer to our personal relationships with our fellow human beings as an example of why we also have to develop and promote a personal relationship with God. Our relationships here on earth are based on constant communications. Without constant communications, our human relationships would be put in anger of dying away. We start our friendships through communications and we sustain it through further communications. Through constant communications, we can be united with those we love even if they are thousands of miles away. But with communications, even our next door neighbor would seem to be a distant stranger. So is our relationship with God. We must also develop our personal relationship and friendship with the Lord by communicating always, and this means praying without ceasing as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians [1 Thessalonians 5:17]. Just as we communicate with the people we love here on earth in order to start, sustain and strengthen our relationship, we should also have that constant communications with God so that we may be able to develop a personal relationship with Him for our God is a loving God, a Father, a Brother, a Companion and Advocate. He is not ruthless ruler who expects to be feared and obeyed blindly; He is a God who has a heart for us His creatures even making us His children in the Lord Jesus Christ and infusing in us His very own Spirit which urges us to continually call upon Him as Father [see Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15].

[2] Personal prayer promotes and improves our participation in the liturgical and communal or community prayers by making such prayers our own personal expression of love for God and for others. When we pray liturgical texts and community devotions without making them our own personal prayers, we merely recite and they would mean nothing to us but mere routine obligation perhaps which we ought to comply with and then be dispensed with as soon as possible. Without making considering them as our own personal prayers also, we will never miss doing them but even try to find excuses not to perform them for they would only mean as obligations and not expressions of faith, hope and love. But when we make liturgical and communal prayers as our own personal expression of longing for God and communing with fellow Christians, we advance into a higher level of spirituality, we are able to maximize the graces and blessings that such activities could give, the activities become manifestations of a living celebration of God's love, friendship and presence, it becomes a true communion with God and fellow Christians, and we are able to fully express our faith and hope in and love for God.

[3] Personal prayer makes our religion more genuine, personal and deeply-rooted. By developing a personal prayer life, we make our religion a genuine expression of our relationship with God. We are able to make religion a personal expression of faith making our religion deeply-rooted on its true meaning, being bound back to God, making ourselves one with God once again. We hear many people - even many Catholics - say that religion is unnecessary; what is important is to have faith. But the faith is just part and parcel of religion for religion has a wider sense that faith and it includes faith and the expressions of faith, such as good works, and rites, liturgy, and devotions which are celebrations of our faith, etc. What we do lack most of the time, perhaps in relation to what we mentioned in number 2 above, is the lack of some sort of personalization of our religion. For many, religion is just like any other information written upon a resume without so much regard for its true significance in his or her life. But religion is not just an entry in our curriculum vitae. It is our life with God, it is our expression of faith, hope and love, it is the totality of our relationship with the One who has created, saved, and sanctified us and which we fulfill in union with others who profess, express and live out the same. 

[4] Personal prayer can best suit the gathering or occasion. There are occasions when we find ourselves being requested to say a prayer, whether it's an opening, closing or for whatever purpose. For most of us Catholics, we usually refer to our memorized prayers such as the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be. Oh yes! these are beautiful prayers indeed. But when recited just for the sake of reciting, they lose their beauty and significance. During my stay in the first seminary I entered, our rector discouraged us from using these prayers when it is our turn to lead the prayer before and after each class not because he does not want us using them [he might be considered a heretic if that be the case] but because he wants us to really make our personal prayers in order to better express what is in our hearts and not say prayers because it is our obligation to do so. Of course, praying to God is really a matter of obligation too but being on that level alone would not help us start, sustain and strengthen a true friendly relationship with God. Moreover, as the Cardinal mentions in his talk, what if the gathering where you are in and have been invited to say a prayer is composed of people from various religious and cultural  backgrounds, would it be proper to use prayers understood and used only by our Church? Instead of the prayer being a source of blessing, it might even start a misunderstanding.

[5] Lastly, personal prayers can best express what we want to say in accordance with the circumstance for which we offer it. We do not have time to browse through formula prayers when we already want to express our gratitude to, our desire to praise, and when we want to ask something from God. Surely, some saint must have composed a prayer for such and such purpose, but even if these are beautiful and effective, without making them our own at least by proper intention, they would still be mere recitations. There is nothing greater than prayers that come from the heart - even if it is composed by others really - when the desire is also from the heart. 

In closing, let me share what Cardinal Arinze said in concluding his talk,

"You can see, brothers and sister, that personal prayer is very important in our lives, both to manifest and intensify our life of union with God, and to help us internalize better our participation in liturgical and community prayers and worship."