For centuries our Church and our cultures have taught us about the "correct" way to approach God (by whatever name He is known). Different societies, ethnic groups and even different religions have come up with "standard" means of practicing prayer and ways of communicating with the transcendent. Men and women throughout history have sought different ways to "find themselves," to gain nirvana, to get to heaven. Prayer was always considered the first step in the journey.
The truth is people today are seeking, as people always have, a way of knowing and caring and living that is better, more fulfilling and more fully human. We all need to be reassured that our values and our traditions are still alive within the community of mankind despite what is blasted out upon us in our news and social media. One of these values is that of prayer.
The Gospel today gives us two examples of prayer and speaks to us all. There is a tragic flaw in the Pharisee's prayer. He seems to have practiced his religious observances beyond what was expected of a good Jew and he was proud of that fact. But he has lost a deeper sense of who God is and where God's heart lies. The parable shows where God's heart lies. It is with the repentant tax collector.
The whole point of both the Old and New Testaments is not to tell us how sinful we are or how weak we are. It is not to paint a picture of a God of wrath and judgement, but to constantly remind us that God's explosion into our lives happens because His love cannot be contained.
One of the reasons we pray is to be open to God's voice and stirrings in our heart. Prayer can change us, make us more aware of how God has often forgiven us and, as a result, make us more forgiving and compassionate towards others in their struggles to change their own lives.
Prayer is paying attention to the presence of God. It is tending toward the presence of God. It is intending God's presence. It is being tender with God's presence and being able to live with the tension of God's presence. It is living intensely with God's presence.
The Christian understanding of prayer is one where, even though it involves our active participation, it is an event where God has the primary role. He is the Initiator of our prayer, and prayer is always a response to His invitation. In order to respond, we first must listen, be attentive, to tune in to the power of the Spirit within us already.
Prayer, in this sense, is not so much something we do, but rather a way of seeing and hearing what in fact is already being done.
God is present to us in the most un-magnificent and most ordinary ways. We must be attentive to that presence, because that presence is elusive and fragile and easily missed. Each of us is different, and we each live different styles of life within the community of faith. What the practice of prayer means for each of us will vary also. It may all look different or take different forms, but it will be, finally, the same thing. It will be being attentive to the presence of God in our lives. It will involve being faithful to Him, to ourselves and to one another. It will be both the joy of the mountaintop and the drought of the desert.
But in the end, it will be the prayer of the Spirit who lives within us and who crys out, "Abba, Father!"
