A seminar on mental prayer given to 4 postulants of the

Missionaries of Charity in Antipolo convent in April 18-20, 2023

Difficulties in mental prayer

 These sessions are to deal with the true nature of prayer in the Ignatian tradition as well
as various challenges encountered in prayer which may impede or slow down our
intimacy with God in prayer.
 Necessity of mental prayer for religious vocation: One reason why we struggle hopelessly in
our vocations is because we have lost the spirit of mental prayer. Only the right spirit of
prayer will bring about true transformation.
o In order for us to deal with the struggles of mental prayer, we must go back to some
basic points of mental prayer.
The following points are necessary to renew and deepen our spiritual life:

What is the true nature of prayer?

 Prayer is a personal communion with God through loving contact with Him.
o Our prayer becomes a means of establishing contact with God and sustaining that
contact with Him, even after the times of formal prayer.
 Prayer is thus anything that allows us to make living contact with God and to live in
communion with Him.
o We pray in communion with a personal God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
 This means that we approach God as human persons. This means we
 Must approach prayer as persons with all our being – heart, mind, body, and
soul; with all our history – past, present and future; with all our strengths and
limitations, desires and frustrations etc., There must be integration and
harmony within us as we pray to God.
 Are ready to enter into an intentional relationship with God who loves us
completely.
 Accept God’s invitation to grow in this relationship by learning how God is
inviting us to live this love in our lives, in the world and in our relationships with
others.
o Intimacy with God is the first motive for prayer.
 This intimacy with God is about receiving love from God and also loving Him in
return.
 As we receive the love of God in prayer, we are also graced to respond to that
love in prayer and in our daily life.
 This love that is received and returned in prayer is what flows out into action in
daily life.
 Authentic prayer is thus prayer that flows out of these two realities:
 We know that we are unconditionally loved by the Triune God.

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  We want to remain in that love, respond to that love, and grow daily in that love.
Prayer dies if one or two of these dispositions are absent in the life of a
person.
 Prayer is an elevation of the soul toward God to render Him homage.
o We must remember the purpose of prayer if we are going to pray well.
 Prayer is not about getting something from God; but giving homage/worship
towards God.
 “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these will be given
to you besides.” We receive all that we need when we praise the will of God and
His kingdom above and before all things.
 Prayer must be primarily God-centered and not us/me-centered.
 To give homage to God in prayer means that we use the powers of the soul –
intellect, will, emotions, memory, imagination to do the following:
1. We adore Him.
2. We beg pardon for our sins.
3. We thank Him for His gifts and benefits.
4. We petition and beg Him for all His graces.
o How does the soul elevate itself towards God?
 By thinking/reflection about God – remain in His presence.
 By loving Him – make acts of love, God’s love for us and our love for Him.
 By listening to Him – “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”
 By conversing with Him. Hear the Lord say, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Some important qualities of Christian prayer that we must never forget.

 Christian prayer is a gift from God.
o A prayerful heart is a free gift from God which calls for a grace-filled response on our
part.
o There is a divine initiative in prayer: God desires and establishes a relationship with His
people through prayer.
 In prayer, God takes the initiative in inviting us to pray by placing in us the desire to
pray. Thus,
 in prayer, we pay attention to God, the only necessary Being, without whom we
are nothing.
 God, and not us, must lead in our prayer.
 We must receive first from God in our prayer before we can response in words
and actions.
 We must depend on the grace and light of God above in prayer.
 We do not have any reward in our prayer that is not a gift from God.
 We do not the strict right to anything in prayer – insight, feelings, results, etc., all
is a gift.

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 The Holy Spirit plays a central role in this divine initiative of prayer.
o The Holy Spirit, the substantial gift of God, also gives us the graces that we need to pray.
 The Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, is the Giver of all good
gifts. He is the one who teaches and enables us to pray.
 See “We do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit intercedes for us
with…” The Spirit prays in us for us to the Father in Jesus Christ.
 In short, it is the Spirit who makes our prayer meaningful and acceptable to the
Father in heaven through Jesus Christ, the only mediator.
o The Spirit also gives us the permission and right to pray to God as His beloved children in
Christ.
 He is source of that unbounded love that allows us to pray to the Father as His
beloved children.
 He is the one who cries out in our hearts, “Abba, Father.”
o The most important thing in prayer is not our methods or techniques of prayer.
 The most important thing is that we are being led and enlightened by the Holy Spirit
in our prayer and life.
 Prayer is also a privileged task:
o Like any other gift, the gift of prayer also demands fidelity and accountability from us.
 Fidelity: We strive to be faithful in prayer and to grow in it, allowing it to bear fruit in
action.
 Prayer is not optional, but it expresses our new identity in God as His children.
 Accountability: Prayer is a privileged task that we must be accountable for as
stewards of God’s gifts. Who are we to be able to converse familiarly with God?
o Because God is the very source of our life and being, our relationship with God in prayer
should fill our lives with meaning and fulfilment.
 This is why prayer should keep us truly human and fully alive for God and for others.
 In addition, prayer nourishes the virtues of faith, hope and charity in us.
 Prayer is a love response to God’s love.
 Prayer is faith-inspired response to God’s grace that moves us to pray.
 Prayer is a hope-filled expression of our identity as children of God.
 In prayer, we allow God to really be God in our lives.
 As we pray, some images will try to enter into our imagination.
Prayer allows us to deny these images dominance over us and to declare that
we love God above all other things (Jn 21:15)
 It is through prayer that we also have access to all the other gifts of God.
o It is in and through this relationship with God in prayer that we receive all that God is
offering to us as well as the grace to respond to those gifts.
 Gifts of God like our religious vocation are received first in prayer and responded to
in prayer first too.

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  God commanded us to ask boldly for all the graces and gifts that come to our minds
when we pray, “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door
will be opened to you.” We must beg for all the graces that we need in prayer.
 Prayer is also a mirror.
o In prayer, the love of God that we receive shines on us like a mirror in which we see our
true selves.
 We begin to know our true selves as we receive the gift of God’s love for us.
 As we enter into the loving presence of God, we have nothing to hide from God or
ourselves.
 His love is a light that reveals to us our true selves before Him.
 The light of His love is not a judgmental and reproaching light but a merciful and
inviting light.
 This is how prayer connects both the conscious (what we know) and the unconscious
(what we do not know) levels of our minds.
o True prayer demands transparency before God.
 When we face unfavorable facts about ourselves that we have tried to hide in the
unconscious mind, if we are unprepared or unable to face them, we begin to fear or
distrust that God will accept us as we are.
 We must bring to God whatever is unfavorable in us that we see in prayer.
 Prayer is meant to transform us and the way that we think, love and choose in this world.
o The more that we focus upon Jesus in our meditations and seek to receive from Him His
words and love for us, the more that we are transformed into Him in our ways of
thinking and choosing.

 Two forms of prayer

o Vocal prayer
 Performed by the use of a written formula.
 The voice is used to recite them audibly, and usually in a group.
o Mental prayer (meditation)
 Generally, does not involve the aid of a particular formula.
 It is usually made with the mind, generally without the articulation of words.
 It consists of the following:
 Thinking of God or holy things (the things of God that pertain to God).
 With the intention of rendering Him homage (Purpose of all prayer)
 The pious thoughts generate pious desires and holy action.
 How do both form of prayer relate?
o Mental prayer is necessary for every Christian who desires to do the will of God and to
be saved.

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  Every Christian has the obligation to pray (vocal and mental) because Christian life
and salvation is impossible without grace and this grace is given to us in prayer and
the sacraments.
 But without meditating, we cannot pray vocal prayer well because we cannot
reflect on what we are saying or who we are praying to.
 Vocal prayer is difficult and full of distraction without due mental prayer.
o Without meditation, we do not know our true dignity before God as His beloved
children.
 Our audience with God in prayer always leaves us with a sense of being a child of
God, a source of hope and joy.
o Without meditation, we do not know our true needs and wants, and we cannot
differentiate them. Needs – to do the will of God; wants – to meet my own desires.
o Without meditation, we do everything by routine, and this leads to thoughtlessness,
spiritual blindness, and insensibility.
o Without meditation, we cannot grasp the path of perfection that God is inviting us to
follow at each moment.
 Meditation allows to us to see, judge, value and pursue things as God desires. The
mind of vision of Christ is ours.
 The goals of mental prayer include the following:
o Helping us to know, love, and serve God better.
o Help us to know ourselves better. God reveals to us our true nature and character in
prayer.
o To help us better fulfill the will of God for us and to discharge the duties of our state of
life.
 Mental prayer thus implies that we are ready to better our relationship with God
and our fidelity to His will.
 Mental prayer in the life of a religious:
o For us religious, mental prayer is a duty of our state of life. Without mental prayer, we
lose the sense of being called by God to this way of life. Vocations are lost without due
mental prayer.
o Only mental prayer can efficaciously preserve us from the spirit of the world and keep
alive in us the spirit of faith.
o Salvation of souls is the work of divine grace in our souls, and this grace is obtained
principally by mental prayer.
 No conversions, perseverance or vocations without the grace of God in our souls.
o Mental prayer also enlightens and strengthens us in the following ways:
 We begin to love what God loves to the point of avoiding sin at all costs.
 Preserves us from lukewarmness or cures us of it if already present.
 It moves us to practice the virtues of our state of life.
 It is a means of joyful and holy perseverance in our vocations.

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 o Jesus put value on this mental prayer:
 We follow the poor, chaste, and obedient Jesus, who came to save all of humanity.
He devoted more time to silent prayer than to preaching. See “Everyone is looking
for you.”
 It is in mental prayer that we connect with the true values of our vows and religious
consecration.
o The disciples also valued mental prayer:
 They freed themselves from all cares so as to devote themselves to prayer and to
the ministry of the word. (Acts 6:4)
 Do not exaggerate the difficulties of mental prayer.
o Since meditation is necessary for each Christian, God will make its practice easy for us
and give us all the graces that we need.
o By the grace of God, all those who have good will can make the acts of prayer – faith,
hope, charity, adoration, petition, etc.
o The difficulties of mental prayer come from the following:
 The devil who labors to keep us from meditation at all costs.
 From spiritual sloth which does not allow us to make efforts in prayer. It does not
allow us to renew our efforts to pray well.
 From discouragement because of our faults and defects that linger and make us feel
that we just cannot overcome them.
 From our sins, which pull our minds, hearts and wills away from God and prayer. We
cannot persist in prayer while persisting in sin, especially mortal sin.
 From a life of compromise with the worldly spirit and with attitudes that are not in
line with our state of life.
 From a lack of good will in ourselves that prevents us from making effort and
begging God for the graces that we need to pray well.

The general elements of mental prayer (These must be present if prayer is going to be alive
and transforming)
 The preparation:
o There are three kinds of preparation.
 The remote (habitual) preparation which involves constantly removing all the
obstacles in our daily life that prevent us from meditating well. We thus dispose
ourselves well for meditation.

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  Such obstacles include dissipation (scatteredness, lack of focus or recollection,
daydreaming/fantasies) and faults against silence, attachment to sin, slavery to
the senses and to the emotions and passions.
 They can be removed by
Recollection and silence, purity of heart (abstaining from all sin committed
with full deliberation), exterior and interior mortifications.
Habitual remembrance of the presence of God, purity of intention, and
frequent recourse to ejaculatory prayers.
 The proximate preparation. This consists of
 Being recollected at the approach of meditation.
 Choose and foresee the subject of mental prayer, the principal considerations
to be made, and the fruit that we want to derive from the prayer. This allows
us to enter into the prayer with faith and expectation.
 Be exact at the hour and place of the meditation. Be consistent.
We do not show due respect to God to approach Him without knowing the
subject of the prayer we are going to offer to Him or the fruit that we hope
to obtain in the prayer moment.
Our minds will wander hopelessly if we do not have proximate preparation.
NB: The subject of the meditation can be chosen in accordance with the
needs of the soul, the attractions of divine grace, and the advice of the
spiritual director.
 The immediate preparation: This is the introduction to the audience with God in
prayer.
 It includes the following things among others.
Invocation to the Holy Spirit for the grace to pray well.
Invoking our Lady to help us to pray well.
An act of faith in the presence of God and of loving union with Him. Most
important in the immediate preparation.
An act of humility and contrition for our sins.
 Before we actually begin to prayer, we must note the following things:
We recall the subject of the meditation as well as the fruit that we wish to
gain from it.
We can break the subject of meditation into points, staying wherever we feel
we are getting the desired fruit.
Use all the faculties of the soul in the consideration – intellect, will, heart,
and even the imagination and memory.
 The body of mental prayer
o It involves a pious (loving and intimate) communication of the soul with God by means
of the following things:
 Considerations (Using the intellect)

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  This means that we use the mind, aided by the light of faith, to reflect on the
subject matter. Use reason, enlightened by faith, to meditate. Believe first, then
reflect on what you believe.
 To meditate in the light of faith means that the truth of faith becomes the rule
of our thoughts, judgments, appreciation, and determinations.
 We must meditate in the light of faith because:
Faith alone can instruct us infallibly in the things which are important for us
to know. This makes the pious meditations.
The light of faith acts at the same time on the intellect, heart and will.
 As we meditate on the material by the means of reason enlightened by faith, we
begin to grasp the subject we are meditating on, and this knowledge penetrates
deep inside of us, so that we can draw conclusions from it.
Do not just think about the truth; let it penetrate our entire being.
In Jesus Christ, truth always bears seeds of divine grace, “Grace and truth
come through Jesus Christ.”
This is what brings about strong convictions and good resolutions.
 As we understand the meaning of the truth we are meditating on, we must
repeat acts of faith in what we are reflecting, “O my God, I believe this truth; but
increase my faith; penetrate me more deeply with it.”
 Let this truth examine us thoroughly because it must now become the rule of
our conduct. “How have I been living this truth before? How am I living it now?
How am I going to live this truth in the future?”
 We must also clarify the exact motive why we must put that truth into action.
The truth and the motive must both penetrate our being.
 In the case that we are meditating on a biblical scene (fact) we can also make use
of our imagination. We must then seek to understand the meaning of all that we
have heard and seen with our imagination.
 Affections (Using the heart)
 These are good and heartfelt sentiments which the heart feels and expresses
during the meditation.
 These affections induce the will to make the good resolutions.
 These affections may be acts that refer to your past, present, or future regarding
this truth, or they may just be supplications/petitions about things in the past,
present, or future.
 As much as possible, stay with the affections that God inspires in us, those which
relate to our necessities, or which proceed from the subject of the meditation.
 Spend more time in the affections rather than on the reflection. Let them flow
from our heart.
 While praying, do not pay attention to the sensible affections that come from all
too natural sensibility or do not result in good resolutions. Such affections lead
to illusions.
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  Resolutions (Using the will)
 These are firm purpose of the will to avoid certain sins and selfishness and to
practice certain virtues out of love for God.
 These are the principal fruit of mental prayer, not the affections (sensible
feelings) or the consideration (truth). Good/truth/beauty perceived by the mind
enlightened by faith → Holy affections of the heart → resolutions of the will.
 The resolutions must have the following qualities:
Precise, not vague or general.
Practical, not theoretical.
Personal i.e., relating to our duties, wants, inclinations, dominant passions,
etc.
Proximate, not for the distant future.
Firm and persevering i.e., constantly renewed until satisfactory result is
obtained.
Directed to the more faithful accomplishment of God’s will.
 The conclusion
o This includes the following:
 Act of thanksgiving for the favors obtained during the mental prayer.
 Act of sorrow for the faults and negligence committed during the mental prayer.
 Renewal of the firm purpose to please God by avoiding sin and practicing virtue.
 Spiritual bouquet i.e., something that sums up and recalls the good thought,
affections, and resolutions of the meditation. We recall this throughout the day.
 The concluding vocal prayers to recommend to God the resolutions and fruits of this
prayer.

Stopped here
Some specific challenges to meditative prayer
 The tension between prayer and activity
o There is a constant tension between our desire for union with God and our desire to be
at the service of our neighbors.
 We all have a constant desire for union with God because we are created to praise,
reverence, and serve Him and by so doing to enter into permanent union with Him.
 But we are also called to express our love of God through service to our
neighbors. We are drawn from within to reach out to the needs of others.
 There is thus a tension of desires between formal prayer and labor/work in
service to others. See Martha and Mary.
 The goal is not to take away this tension but to embrace it in a positive and creative
manner and to live in a healthy balance.
 The question is how to create a healthy link between formal prayer with God
and labor/work in service of others?

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o Contribution of St. Ignatius: He was aware that God is
 Present in all things and events. We encounter God in both prayer and in daily life
activities and relationships.
 He is laboring with us unceasingly in all things and events so as to communicate His
life to us and to others through us, and to draw all of creation to Himself.
 We only have to be in communion with Him and cooperate with His plans. This is
the essence of every vocation – God calls us to be in partnership with Him.
 This partnership with God is not as equals; but a partnership of dependence on
Him and complete trusting surrender to Him.
 We cooperate by seeking to praise, reverence and serve Him in all things for our
salvation.
o The necessary link between formal prayer and labor/work is contemplation in action.
This means the following thing:
 It is a form of prayer that connects formal prayer with the daily work and activities
of life.
 We see God in both silence of prayer and in the details of activity in our noisy
world.
 To become a contemplative in action is to bring harmony and continuity between
formal prayer and daily activity and interactions.
 The formal prayer gives and both energy and zeal for faithful labor in God’s
kingdom.
 There is no apostolic fruitfulness without intimacy with God. In this prayer
moments, we begin to humble ourselves and surrender to Him so that He can
use us for His mission to build up His kingdom.
 Our labors also increase our spiritual taste and joy for prayer in order to draw
more strength from God and grow in gratitude and humility for the call to serve.
Everything begins in prayer: The particular graces that we experience and
attitude that we acquire in prayer towards God and work enables us to find
God in all things.
 The contemplative in action is one whose prayer (communion with God) never ends
but it permeates all the aspects of life.
 By the grace of God, the heart and mind remain united with God even outside
formal prayer.
 Our work can truly be prayer only when we direct all our intentions and interior
operations (memory, intellect and will) to the praise and service of God.
 We consciously seek and find God, (not ourselves) in all things and persons, both in
the stillness of formal private prayer and in the busy and noise of daily living.
 We can never seek and find God (conscious act) if we do not desire to praise and
serve Him in all things.

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  Contemplatives in action seek and find God in all things and remain united with
Him in all things and at all times, seeking to serve and praise Him always.
 Jesus is the perfect contemplative in action, and He is the one who makes us so
too.
 We are to imitate Him and learn from Him.
 The only way to remain united with Him and imitate Him in the busy and noisy
world is to become a contemplative in action.
 We maintain our loving dialogue prayer with God during and outside the times
of formal prayer. Through prayer we participate in time in the eternal dialogue of
the divine persons.
Thus, such Christian prayer is what helps us to transcend our individualistic
and social biases and to be in communion with all of humanity for the sake of
service in the name of God.
True communion with the Triune God will lead us to abandon favoritism,
discrimination, elimination, and exclusion of others.
o We need to be contemplatives in action for the sake of cultivating a true devotion.
 Both in private prayer and in life occupation, we are so devoted to God that we can
remain connected with Him in all things, do all for love of Him, and offer all to Him.
In short, we desire to please God in all things, in prayer and in daily life.
 Thus, our devotion to God is not limited to only times of prayer and liturgical
worship; we are indeed devoted to Him in all things.
 This brings both peace and energy to one’s vocation.
 In addition, when we begin to seek and find God in all things, we begin to see
ourselves and all things in a different way, with the eyes of God, we begin to love
and serve all people as God desires.
 This is how we overcome routine and boredom in our daily lives – we are connecting
with God in all things.
o Four requirements to be a contemplative in action (ready to find God in all things):
 Pure and right intention (purity of intention in all things).
 This is the intention to be single-minded and single-hearted in doing the will of
God in everything.
 This is an intention that is rooted in the will under the influence of God’s grace; it
is not in the emotions and feelings.
 It is to aim in all things to fulfill the Principle and Foundation and why we were
created and gifted by God – to serve and to please God for His own sake. Two
things to keep in mind from the Principle and Foundation:
We live according to the reason for which God has created us and keeps us
alive at each moment – to praise, reverence and serve God for our salvation.

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 We relate as with all creatures as God wants us – to use them insofar as they
help us to attain that end or which we were created. Created things are
never to be seen as ends in themselves.
 We try to ensure that our intentions are pure and not mixed i.e., we strive in all
things to have the intention not to offend God but to please God in all things.
 This requires humility by which we submit ourselves to God and obey His
precepts for His greater glory.
 This purity of intention leads to the practice of spiritual discernment.
 Spiritual discernment.
 This involves examination of consciousness regularly so as to check and redirect
our intentionality in all things.
 This spiritual discernment will lead to a discrete charity in all things, even in
prayer and in apostolate, choosing in all things that which is to the greater glory
of God at any given moment.
There is always a need to discern the style or amount of prayer/ascetical
practices and apostolic activities.
A mere desire to pray more or to serve others more is not enough: we must
also discern our charity so that we remain truly prayerful and truly apostolic.
 We try to see how God (who always have a pure and loving intention towards us)
has been present and active in our lives and how we have been responding to
His love by maintaining our purity of intention in all things during the day.
 This spiritual discernment is a matured way of being spiritually vigilant in all
things – thoughts, desires, feelings, actions, etc.,
 This spiritual discernment leads to interior freedom and detachment.
 Interior freedom/detachment.
 Interior freedom or detachment from creatures helps us to learn how to love
creatures as created realities and use them insofar as they help us to reach the
end for which we were created.
 We are spiritually free regarding both spiritual and material things because we
see them as creatures and means alone and not the end.
 It allows us to:
Be open to God alone and not be slaves of creatures, human or inanimate.
Let go of our will and embrace the will of God.
Let go of our opinions and embrace the will of the superior and community.
Grow in humility, by realizing that we are not God, and so do not know and
have everything.
Be attentive to the prophetic (biblical) word of God as well as the existential
(contextual) word of God, what God is revealing to us in the scriptures and in
our daily lives. This is how we can interpret the signs of the times.
 Familiarity with God.
 By this familiarity with God, we begin to recognize:
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 The face of Christ in others so as to be in solidarity with them in all their
needs.
The face of Christ in the events of life so as to be open to His will for us.
 This familiarity with God follows from is accompanied by purity of intention,
spiritual discernment, and interior freedom.
 This familiarity with God is crucial in several ways:
In our spiritual lives: we can turn to God in all the moments of our lives, in
our sorrows and in our joys, without doubt or agitation. This is how we
connect with spiritual joys and reject the fleeting and false worldly joys.
In our vocations: we begin to hear the gentle and silent whispers and desires
in the heart of God for us all.
In our trials and sufferings: we can recognize the suffering Christ in our
suffering brothers and sisters and remain in communion with Him even then.
 Without this familiarity with God, we cannot face the temptations and trials of
our earthly life.
We cannot be open to God and transparent with Him in prayer.

Examination of conscience (One means of spiritual discernment)

 Examination of conscience (Examen) is a prayerful practice of prayerful and reflective
awareness of the presence and loving action of God in our lives and daily activities.
o We must have the following convictions and dispositions.
 We “live and move and have our being in the presence of God all the time.” God is
always present and active in our lives.
 We also want to respond more faithfully to His love so that we praise, reverence and
serve Him faithfully with all that He has given to us, good or bad.
 Examination of conscience: a moral exercise in which we reflect on our sins and virtues. It
has a moral tone, focused on good to be done and evil to be avoided in our lives.
o But examination of consciousness (Examen) focuses on the presence and activity of
God in our affective consciousness i.e., how God moves us from within.
 Examination of consciousness is not primarily focused on good and bad actions but
on the way that God is affecting and moving us deep in our affective consciousness
and how we are responding to His movements.
 God always influences our thoughts and desires towards what is true, good and
beautiful. This is the source of the inner impulse towards good.
 We need both inner impulse as well as external sources of actions e.g., Church
teachings and scripture.
 Because these inner impulses, thoughts and desires from God come long before our
particular actions (which may be called good or evil),

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  For our part, what is happening in our affective consciousness is more important
than the actions which follow as good or bad. We cannot make good actions
without properly discerning the affective consciousness.
 The examination of consciousness must come before and accompany the
examination of conscience which helps us to know how we responded to God’s
inspirations in concrete moral acts.
o The examination of consciousness must be the link between formal contemplative
prayer and the actual discernment in daily life.
 Without prayer, the examen becomes empty and unhealthy self-reflection.
 Without the actual discernment, examen is useless because it does not lead to
action.
 Two types of examination of consciousness (Examen)
o Particular examen: Focus is one particular sin or defect which he intends to correct and
amend because this particular sin is not allowing him to live in the presence of God and
live according to the Principle and Foundation i.e., to praise, reverence and serve God.
 We compare hour to hour, day to day, week to week, how we have been able to
overcome that sin and defect.
o General examen: This helps to prepare one for general confession, to gain deeper
interior understanding of one’s state of soul and to better dispose oneself to receive the
grace of God.
 It focuses on all moments of one’s life before the moment of confession, seeing how
God has loved the soul and how the soul has been responding to that love.
 Five steps for the Examen
o Thanksgiving: Thank God for everything, for the day, the people we met and the
activities of our lives.
o Petition for grace: We pray to see where we did not use God’s graces properly and ask
God for help to overcome failures.
o Review: We look back to our live and review the spiritual experiences of the day itself,
noting the events and the accompanying experiences.
o Forgiveness: we acknowledge any waywardness and ask God for forgiveness and
healing where necessary.
o Planning: we look ahead to the future and we surrender our plans to God for the next
day.

Spiritual discernment
 Spiritual discernment allows us to recognize the presence and activity of God in our
affective consciousness i.e., in our thoughts, desires, feelings, etc.
o This is very important because we have three sources of our thoughts:
 Those from ourselves.

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  Those coming from God and the good spirits.
 Those coming from the bad spirits.
 Discernment allows us to know and differentiate the various inner experiences.
o This is why discernment needs to be accompanied by the examination of consciousness.
 We cannot do discernment without this examen that allows us to look back regularly
and learn from how we have encountered God and responded to His love in our
daily lives.
o The goal of discernment is three-fold and it must lead to discerned choices.
 Aware: To be aware of what is going on in one’s interior life.
 Identify: To identify and to understand the source (spirit) responsible.
 Respond: To take action i.e., reject what is from the enemy and embrace what is
from God.
 In discernment
o Notice what is called affective consciousness i.e., the thoughts, feelings, impulses and
emotions that come before our extrinsic human acts.
 These are called consolations or desolations in terms of how they move us towards
God or away from Him.
 These indicate God’s activity in our live, drawing us away from evil towards good and
right choices and decisions, or the activity of the enemy, drawing us away from good
towards evil.
o In doing discernment, the examen helps us in the following ways:
 To see the activity of God as prior to our human acts. God acts always – before,
during and after we have acted!
 To see how we are cooperating with God or resisting Him in our daily lives.

Familiarity with God

 The regular examen helps us to build a contemplative attitude, an attitude that allows us to
become familiar with God’s language to us through consolations and desolations.
o This is what allows us to easily raise our minds and hearts to God as we engage in daily
activities.
 The more that we become accustomed to the language of God to us through consolations
and desolations,
o The more that we can identify, resist, and reject the actions of the enemy in our hearts
and minds.
o The more that we embrace our vocation to be on mission to bring the love of God to all
persons in all times and places.
o The more that we grow in holiness and wholeness. Personal integration is also achieved
because we now tend towards God with all our being – head, heart, mind, affects, etc.,

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Some other important challenges to prayer
 Lack of trust in God
o Because prayer is a mirror in which we see ourselves, the moment we are in the
presence of God in prayer, we begin to see our true selves.
 We begin to see that we are sinners, and we are inadequate.
 We see the whole truth about ourselves – our fears and fantasies, our
aggressions, desires, sexuality, attachments, past sins, shortcomings, and
failures, etc.,
 We see what is positive and what is in need of growth and healing in us; we see
our light and shadow, our strengths and weaknesses.
 This is the basis of self-knowledge that comes in prayer.
 The question then is this:
 Can we trust that God is loving enough to establish a loving relationship with us
through prayer just as we are and draw us to Himself?
 Can we trust God to accept us just as we are without trying to pretend to be
something else?
 The choice is this: are we going to reveal ourselves to God or try to hide from Him
because we feel unworthy in His presence?
 Prayer becomes a threatening experience when we are reluctant or avoiding
facing and revealing our true selves to God.
 We dread to be in the presence of God because of our shadow self and this kills
our prayer life – we just cannot be open with God.
 We grow in intimacy with God only when we
 Trust Him enough to face and accept our shadow selves (dark parts of our selves)
 Reveal ourselves honestly and completely to Him.
 Allow the Lord to heal us instead of denying, avoiding or trying to self-medicate.
(See Is 1:18-20; 1Jn 1:8-9; See Adam and Eve in Gen 3:10)
o In dealing with the shadow part of ourselves,
 We must not deny any part of ourselves. We must accept the whole truth of who we
are before God.
 Confront and accept it with humility because God sees it all.
 Do not try to run away from these unfavorable things when God makes it clear to us
in prayer.
 Reflect on the mystery of sin and iniquity so that we can better appreciate the depth
and power of the merciful love of God for us.
 Trust not in self but in the infinite merciful love of God for us.
 Trusting in ourselves make us anxious and agitated due to our sins and
imperfections (shadows in our lives).

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  We also become fixated on our weakness and imperfections, allowing them to
determine who we are and making us blind to the goodness that we have.
 Be ready to learn more about God and ourselves from our failures.
 Continue to give self to God and to surrender to Him even as we face our shadow
selves. God slowly brings hope and light into our lives as we give ourselves to Him.
 Cultivate greater trust in the grace of God and not in our own goodness. God grace
can do amazing things through our own weaknesses, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in your weakness.”
o Be firmly grounded in God’s unconditional love for us.
 This means the following things:
 God loves us freely without condition or qualification.
 God’s love for us has no limits; it is everlasting and forever enduring.
 He loves us as we are, no matter our situation or condition.
 He does not love us based on any virtue.
 Nothing we do can merit His love or increase His love for us, “As the Father has
loved me, so I love you.”
 He loves us for two reasons that cannot be taken away from us:
Because we are created in His image and likeness. Because we are created
out of love, we have a goodness from God.
Because He has died for us to make us adopted children, even when we were
dead in sin (Rom 5:8-10)
 We respond to this love of God in the following ways:
 See our sins as a pathway through which God’s love comes to us and not as
something that separates us from His love. “Nothing separates us from His love.”
The more that we allow God to forgive us, the more that we can actually love
God and neighbors, “She loved much because she has been forgiven much.”
 See God as one who labors and pursues us to bring us back to Him (The Good
Shepherd who leaves the 99 to search for the lost sheep)
 God never abandons or forgets us, even if a mother should forget her child
whom she gave birth to (Is 49:15-16)
 God hates sin but loves the sinner tenderly that He came to call sinners to
repentance and to die for our sins.
 We surrender our sins and repent, forgiving ourselves and ready to move on.
 We cultivate greater confidence in God and not in ourselves.
 When we are not grounded in God’s unconditional love for us.
 We focus on our shadows, sins and failures.
 We ignore and even reject our blessedness, giftedness, divine favors and
strengths.

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 Distorted (inappropriate) image of God
o The image of God that we have in our mind determines our growth in intimacy with
God.
 Our image of God can be either positive or negative, depending on how that image
corresponds to the image of God revealed by Jesus Christ to us.
 Positive images of God enhance prayer and intimacy with God; negative images do
not.
o A positive image of God is one that comes from holding together the many scriptural
images of God and not allowing any past experiences to separate them or to make us
fixate on one of them and ignore the other.
 A good image of God means that we see God as both
 God as Loving Father, merciful, compassionate Savior and Redeemer. (Loving
images of God in us)
 God as judge who will judge the living and the dead at the end of time.
(Demanding images of God in us)
o A negative image of God is one that comes not from scripture but from past experiences
or from one’s upbringings. A negative image of God is either:
 Not rooted in scripture and found in the life of Christ.
 One-sided in holding on to only one aspect of God e.g., believing in God who judges
and forgetting the merciful love of God.
o Some negative images of God include:
 God as judge who is always ready to punish us for our sins and failures.
 The person(s) thus sees prayer and sacrifice as a way to placate the angry God
and escape His punishment. No generosity in love is possible.
 God as the vigilant policeman who watches to catch us in our crimes.
 The person(s) is always afraid to do anything or to make mistakes.
 He/she may even begin to lie and to be dishonest.
 God as absentee Father who does not care what we do or what we are going
through.
 The person(s) does not care to do the will of God and will not pray frequently
and fervently.
o Some sources of these negative images of God
 Childhood relationships with parents and other authority figures. Cultural
upbringing.
 The negative and one-sided way in which God is presented to us.
 Past life experiences where we experience rejection, harshness, demanding attitude
of others towards us.
 We do not reconcile and hold together both the loving and the demanding images
of God.

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  In prayer, we experience both of them in different ways and we cannot control
them.
 We do not let ourselves fixate on the demanding or even threatening images of
God and then ignore the loving, merciful and compassionate images.
 For a healthy prayer life and spirituality, our dominant and always operative
image of God must be a loving image of God.
Paused

 Psychic-related1 challenges to prayer

o Lack of self-presence: In order for us to love God and others, we must be truly present
to God and to others in a trusting manner. This is called self-presence.
 This self-presence first depends on how we experienced love and acceptance by
our parents at home and by others.
 If we experienced love and acceptance from parents or authority figures, we
unconsciously expect that same love from God and from others. Thus, self-
presence is possible and easy for us.
 But if we did not experience love and acceptance from parents, we will be afraid
that God and others will reject us. Thus, we will find it hard to relate with God
and others because we cannot have self-presence with them.
We may even see others as policemen watching for our faulty behavior.
This can negatively impact our prayer and intimacy with God.
 Self-presence is dynamic: we are called to grow in this self-presence before God,
people and the world. That is, by the grace of God, we must grow in a more trusting
presence to God, other people, and the world.
 Greater self-presence before God leads to holiness.
 Greater self-presence before others leads to loving service.
 Self-presence affects our prayer life.
 The more we feel loved and accepted by the people we live and work with, the
easier for us to experience the presence of God in prayer.
 The more that we feel alienated from others, the more that we will feel God
distant from us as well.
This is why vibrant life in community is very crucial for our prayer life.
All of us are the guardians of the prayer life of each other. Thus, forgiveness
and reconciliation with those who have wronged us is crucial for our prayer
life.
Self-presence demands that we are ready to grow in trust towards God and
others.
 Self-presence also depends on the balance in our daily lives.

1
Psychic has to do with the energies in the soul.

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  Loss of balance and integration are obstacles to self-presence and thus with
intimacy with God in prayer.
 Loss of balance is evident when
We become too absorbed with work, study, or other duties to the extent
that we neglect prayer.
We become too absorbed by prayer that we neglect our duties and social
concerns.
 The remedy here is to follow the daily horarum and try to be faithful to
the vow of obedience.
 Lack of integration is when our prayer life does not affect our daily life choices.
The praxis of prayer must be integrated into the totality of our lives i.e., the
practice of prayer must touch and transform all the aspects of our Christian
life.
o Willfulness:
 Authentic prayer, if it makes contact with the loving God, must lead us to slowly
surrender our wills and intentions to God.
 Willfulness is our reluctance or refusal to surrender our wills and plans to God.
 It is thus an obstacle to growth in intimacy with God. It leads us to hold on to our
attachments and selfish interests and plans. A willful person cannot pray well.
 For us to be united with God in prayer, we must be willing to surrender our will
to God and begin to will what He wills for us for His own sake.
We surrender both our will and intention.
 The steps in self-surrender include:
 Admit and accept one’s weaknesses and limitations.
 Know that we are unconditionally loved by God and He always wills the best for
us.
 Readiness to trust in God’s grace and allow that grace to flow into our hearts
when we surrender our attachments and seek to know and fulfill God’s desires
for us.
 A truly willful person
 Refuses to surrender to God.
 Chooses to trust in himself, his own knowledge and will power. No need to trust
in God’s grace and light, “I know what I want and nothing will stop me from
having it.”
 Desires to be master of his soul and determine his own destiny.
 Experiences both failure and frustration in prayer and in the spiritual life because
we cannot advance in prayer without the grace of God.
 Some signs of willfulness:
 Getting discouraged when God does not grant our particular requests in prayer.

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  Trying to coerce or manipulate God in prayer to get what we want and refusing
to trust and submit to His will.
 Giving up prayer because we do not see visible results.
 We are so blinded by self-will that we do not notice our gifts and blessings from
God. This leads us to become ungrateful to God.
2
o Ego defense mechanism
 There are different forms of love that emerge in our relationships.
 Erotic love = this is the sexual love, the love of spouses.
 Agape love = self-giving and sharing love, leads to self-sacrifice for the sake of
the beloved.
 Filial love = mutual love, fraternal love between siblings, or the love of
friendship, as well as the love between parents and children.
 Narcissistic love = selfish love, loving another for a selfish motive or interest.
 Whatever the form of love, love always generates energy.
 This energy leads to union or bonding between two persons.
 In prayer, agape love becomes unitive love which binds us to God.
 In times of prayer, we are in union with God, and there is energy that is produced for
this union.
 However, our union with God is not only in the mind or heart but the whole
person. Prayer involves the whole person and the energy liberated through
prayer permeates the entire self (personality).
 Thus, it is not just agape love that is involved in prayer;
We even experience self-regarding thoughts and feelings in prayer.
In the unitive experience of prayer, the erotic energy is also present, making
us feel our male and female sexuality. Thus, we have sexual thoughts and
feelings in our prayer.
 The self-centered aspect of our ego will act to turn the flow of spiritual passion in
our union with God into an erotic outlet. Erotic experiences begin to take the place
of unitive experience of prayer.
 Both agape and erotic love are passionate, involve energy and lead to intimacy.
 The defensive ego capitalizes on these two loves and confuses them to the point
that we feel union with God as well as sexual feelings.
 This is why we have strong sexual feelings in prayer despite our desire to focus
on God. We also find it hard to differentiate the two loves because of our ego
defense mechanisms.
 Remember the following about ego erotic experiences:
The feelings and thoughts are harmless in themselves; the only thing that
matters is how we respond to them and the actions that follow.

2
Ego = the self; id = unrefined self, superego = authority of parents, teachers and other formators who contribute
to the formation of self.

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 The sexual thoughts, fantasies, and feelings only show that we are truly
human with sexual needs. Our life of prayer is not meant to deny our
humanity or take away our sexual desires.
We must not try to repress, deny, or indulge in the sexual thoughts, fantasies
and feelings of ego erotic experiences.
Notice these sexual thoughts and feelings in prayer but maintain a discipline
of focusing on Jesus throughout the prayer regardless of how or what we
feel, so that we do not get confused about the flow of energy.
Note that many erotic feelings in prayer occur as temptations to take us
away from prayer and to discourage us from deeper prayer.
 The more fervently we pray, the more that the enemy will attack us
through sexual feelings and thoughts in prayer.
o Dark nights of the soul
 The dark nights are the several moments in our spiritual journey to union with God
in which God purifies and cleanses the soul of all that is repugnant to God’s holiness.
 God continuously purifies our intentions, desires and aspirations. This brings
darkness to the soul in order to illuminate it and give it divine light that
transcends all natural lights and purifies our desires.
 All our human actions in these moments are to dispose us for divine action in our
souls. Thus, we must never stop praying even as we experience a dark night of
the soul.
 We face these dark nights with patience, humility, and trust in God.
 We know that they will not last forever and that the grace of God is sufficient to
sustain us through those moments.

Three common difficulties encountered in mental prayer

Distractions
 A distraction occurs when the soul deviates from the object which should occupy its
attention in prayer. It is a loss of due attention to God and to the objects of the prayer.
o It happens when thoughts, images, sounds, voices, and feelings invade our prayer and
take away our concentration and focus on Christ so that we do not commune with Him
as she should.
 Thus, they impede our union with God and our intimacy with Him.
 In order to address the distraction, we must evaluate the type of distraction: is the
distraction voluntary or involuntary?
o Distractions are voluntary when:
 We do not endeavor to banish the distractions as soon as we perceive them.
 We allow them to linger and even take satisfaction from them.
 These are directly voluntary distractions i.e., we actually will the distractions.

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  We do not endeavor to remove the causes of the distraction.
 We refuse to find the root cause of the distraction.
 These are indirectly voluntary distractions.
o Distractions are involuntary when:
 We have not caused them.
 We are not aware of them.
 When, being aware of them, we do not entertain them freely.
 When they come and the persist despite our efforts to remove them or their causes.
 In this case, we do not will the distractions or their causes in any way but they
still come.
 Thus, involuntary distractions are neither culpable nor even injurious to us.
 They become a means of sanctity as we resist them.
 What are the chief causes of our distractions in prayer?
o The devil who will do anything to prevent us from having fruitful mental prayer.
 Meditation is the beginning of spiritual battle.
 Satan knows more than we do the profit of mental prayer. He will do anything to
make us abandon it completely or to do it poorly.
o A lack of preparation for meditation, especially of the habitual preparation.
o The natural levity of our mind.
 The mind…
o The great number and demands of our responsibilities.
 This is further compounded by our desire to excel in all that we do to the point that
we lose the sense of our limited human nature.
 Some pointers in dealing with distractions:
o Impossible to avoid and eliminate all distractions: It is not possible to completely
eliminate or avoid all distractions in prayer.
 But we are obliged to do the following things:
 Struggle against them.
 Endeavor to diminish their sad effects on us.
 Refuse to be slaves of the distractions.
o There are distractions that are unavoidable.
 Thus, we must not be surprised or discouraged by distractions. We should also not
become troubled or agitated because of them.
 Though we cannot avoid all distractions all the time, we can and we must refuse to
invite them into our hearts or to indulge in them in any way.
 It is enough for us to just turn our mind back to our prayer as soon as we become
aware of the distraction.
o Form the right mindset and attitude needed to deal with distractions:
 From the very beginning, we must make up our minds and be determined to
meditate well, no matter the distractions that may come our way.

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 
During the meditation, we must drive from our minds all distractions as soon as we
perceive them.
o Some means of banishing distractions:
 Humble ourselves for these wanderings of our mind, without becoming troubled.
 Practice more being in the presence of God, our Lady, the saints, and angels during
and outside the time of prayer.
 Gaze on an object capable of fixing our attention, like the tabernacle, crucifix, holy
pictures.
 Ask God for help by short ejaculatory prayers.
 Calmly endeavor to take up the object of meditation without ever becoming
discouraged.
 Seek to practice what St. Francis de Sales called the meditation of patience in which
we are ready to pass the entire time for meditation fighting off distractions. This
meditation of patience is meritorious because:
 The sincere will to do what is required for meditation is itself already a good
meditation and it ensures all the fruits of the meditation itself.
 The greater our efforts to overcome difficulties, the greater our merits.
 We can also integrate some distractions into our prayer, making them part of our
prayer. These distractions are usually not oriented towards evil things but to good
and normal things:
 First, we recognize the presence of the distraction.
 Admit that something is happening within us.
 Try to name the distraction and the feeling that it brings.
 We see these distractions as a gift from God through which He wants to get our
attention in a special way. We ask, “What is Jesus trying to say to me through
this recurring distraction?”
Notice how distractions can also show our inordinate attachments.
 Hear God ask you like He did to St. Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me
more than these (distractions)?”
In our live and prayer, Jesus is still demanding of us all single-mindedness and
undivided hearts. He asked of this in our prayer time.
Do we answer affirmatively or negatively to this question during the time of
distraction?
 We prove our affirmative answer by actually refocusing on Jesus and let the
distraction go.

Aridity

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 Aridity is the state in which the soul finds itself unable to produce the acts of meditation,
because of a lack of thought and sentiment (affection)
o Aridity can be either
 Voluntary aridity – this is culpable.
 Involuntary aridity – this is not culpable.
o Attitude towards the forms of aridity:
 If aridity is voluntary, it must be combatted from its very root causes.
 If aridity is involuntary,
 We must not permit agitation or discouragement to lay hold of us.
 Remember the presence of God even in the moments of aridity when we cannot
feel His presence.
 Try to make Acts of faith, humility, confidence, humble supplication, and love in
those moments of aridity.
 When we experience aridity or dryness
o We feel abandoned by God because we do not feel His presence anymore in our prayer.
o We find it hard to express our thoughts and desires to God in prayer.
o The true nature of aridity: We must remember the following points about
dryness/aridity:
 What we are really experiencing is only an apparent absence of God and His grace.
In truth, God never abandons us though we may feel His abandonment.
 We only lose the sensible presence of God with us.
 (Rule #7 of 1st week rules) #320 “When one is in desolation, he should be mindful
that God has left him to his natural powers to resist the different agitations and
temptations of the enemy in order to try him. He can resist with the help of God,
which always remains, though he may not clearly perceive it. For though God has
taken from him the abundance of fervor and overflowing love and the intensity of his
favors, nevertheless, he has sufficient grace for eternal salvation.”
 The ordinary causes of voluntary aridity include:
o Affection for sin.
o Habitual dissipation of the mind
 The mind is scattered and focused on trivial and earthly things.
o Lack of mortification of the passions, especially in the areas of sensuality (excessive
indulgence in the senses) and lack of simplicity in life.
o Lack of mortification of Ego.
 Pride and egotism make it hard for us to do deep mental prayer.
 Some other possible reasons why we face aridity:
o We are beginning to trust in ourselves and not in God in our life and prayer. God
withdraws His abundant presence to make us more trusting and dependent on Him.
o We are lax and not faithful in our regular prayer time and in the seriousness of our
prayer life.

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 o We are not living a good sacramental life, especially towards the Eucharist and
confession. We may even be taking these sacraments for granted, being presumptuous
or even receiving them with an inappropriate disposition.
o We are compromising with the will of God, especially in failing to avoid the occasions of
sin.
o We are getting lazy in practicing charity towards others in life.
o God wants to use the dryness to purify our faith in Him and our prayer life just as gold is
tested and purified in fire. These are moments of testing, learning and growth in prayer.
 Some pointers in dealing with aridity:
o Recall that aridity in itself, no matter how prolonged it is, cannot prevent the prayer
from being beautiful and fruitful.
 Many of the saints have gone through painful ordeals of aridity in their prayer but
persevered in both prayer and apostolate.
 Dryness in prayer, though it is difficult, is also a moment of grace for the soul. God is
preparing the soul for greater union with Him.
o In times of aridity, think of the following truths:
 Virtue does not consist in tender and heartfelt affections but in serving God with
courage. It is thus possible to have dryness and still do the will of God with love.
 God tries those whom He loves with the trials of aridity.
 God puts to test those who are serious and are advancing in prayer and in
spiritual life through dryness so that they can mature in their motive for all
things.
 See the dryness as something positive and beneficial and not something
negative.
 See the dryness not as God abandoning you but God bringing you to face your own
selfishness, self-seeking, and self-trust that wounds our relationship with Him. We
are self-seeking in many ways, even in prayer.
 Looking for consoling experiences in prayer.
 Looking for signs and assurances that God is present with us.
 Not ready to abandon ourselves to God without divine guarantees.
 Aridity is a source of great spiritual profit for the soul if it perseveres in prayer. Do
not abandon prayer or blame God for this feeling of being abandoned by Him.
 Commit to a daily prayer schedule no matter the dryness involved.
 Be patient and enduring throughout the dryness.
 In times of aridity, our discouragement will be both dishonorable to God and
detrimental to our souls.
 When we are tempted to abandon prayer because of dryness, we practice agere
contra i.e., we do the very opposite of what the temptation suggests – we
prolong instead of shortening the prayer.

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  The lost fervor in prayer will return in God’s own time if we do not give up prayer
altogether. “Wait for the Lord, take courage, be stouthearted, wait for the Lord.”(Ps
27:14)
 But in waiting for the Lord during times of aridity, we must not be passive but be
active in the agere contra, seeking to do the very opposite of what the feelings
suggest. We do this active waiting in four ways (Rule #6 for dealing with desolation:
More prayer, meditation, penance, and examination of conscience.)
 We always come out of times of dryness better and more purified. The purification
must come before greater union with God in life and in prayer.

Illusions
 Illusions are the false ideas which Satan endeavors to plant in our mind in order to make us
eventually abandon meditation.
 Some very popular illusions include:
o To believe that the mental prayer is too difficult, and that we shall never succeed in
performing it well.
 The truth is that mental prayer is always possible and even easy for those who have
a good will.
o To believe that it is useless to apply ourselves to mental prayer, since we do not make
any progress in virtue anyhow.
 The truth is that meditation performed with a good will is necessarily accompanied
by progress in virtue, even if the progress is not perceptible from day to day.
o To judge the value of our meditation by the consolations or good sentiments we
experience.
 The truth is that we judge the value of our meditation especially by the firm
determination of our will to do the following:
 To reform our lives for the better.
 To be less selfish and more selfless.
 To be more charitable to God and to neighbor.
 To be more submissive to God’s holy will.
 To be more obedient to God and those in authority.
 To be purer and humbler of heart.

Inhibited/repressed feelings:
 These are feelings that we are reluctant to express in the presence of God in prayer.
o We try to keep these feelings from God, instead of bringing them to Him to be purified,
consecrated, and oriented for His greater praise and glory.
 Some truths about emotions in prayer.
o The emotions are not bad in themselves.
 We cannot control how we experience them in life.

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  But we can choose how we are going to express them in life and in prayer.
o We should be honest with God about our feelings and the thoughts and desires that
accompany them.
 We should not try to hide the feelings from God in prayer. We must also be
emotionally honest as in the psalms.
o We should not follow our emotions blindly.
 Emotions are not rational; they must be trained to love and pursue the true, good,
and beautiful.
 We must discern our emotions and feelings in prayer by asking the following
questions:
 Where is this feeling coming from?
 What are the thoughts that give rise to and accompany this feeling?
 Are these thoughts and feelings from God or from the enemy?
 Where will it lead me if I follow it? Towards God or away from Him?
o Tears can have therapeutic when we express them appropriately in prayer and in daily
life.
 When expressed well in prayers, they can be channels of God to heal our pains and
relieve our fears.
o Some inappropriate ways of dealing with feelings:
 To completely ignore them and only operate on the level of thoughts.
 To repress them and refuse to acknowledge and express them appropriately. Such
prayer is usually shallow and unattractive.
 Seek to enter into and share the thoughts and feelings of the scripture authors,
especially in the psalms where we find joy, sorrow, pain, confusion, distress, etc.

Unforgiveness
 Our unwillingness to forgive others’ mistakes or offenses against us is a block to our prayer
and intimacy with God.
o It is easy for us to hold on to painful negative and dehumanizing past injuries that we
have experienced from others or from sinful social structures.
o When we do not forgive others,
 We cannot pray well and deep. Forgiveness is a necessary condition for deep prayer
with God, “When you stand to pray, forgive anyone against whom you have a
grievance, so that your heavenly Father may in turn forgive you your
transgressions.”(Mk 11:25)
 Our unwillingness to forgive is a block to our prayers, “If you do not forgive
others, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your transgressions.”(Mt 6:14-
15)
 We do not get any merit from our prayers and spiritual practices.
 “If you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that?”(Mt 5:43-48)

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  Forgiving our enemies and praying for them is the way to have “recompense”
and thus grow in merit.
 God will not forgive us our sins, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who
trespass against us.”
 If God does not forgive us for our sins, then He will also not accept our prayers
and thus, our prayers become useless to Him.
 Thus, we cannot pray with deep honesty before God if we are not forgiven by
Him.
 We also experience hatred, anger, resentments, and a revengeful spirit that takes
away our peace and blocks our prayers and intimacy with God.
 We thus allow others to control us and we lose our freedom because we allow them
to dictate how we feel, think, and act.
 In facing the struggle to forgive:
o Forgiveness has nothing to do with how we feel.
 We do not wait till we feel good enough to forgive someone. Forgiveness is not a
feeling.
o Forgiveness is a deliberate choice and decision prompted and supported by the grace of
God.
 It involves both the mind and the will, i.e., we grasp the value of forgiveness, and
we consciously choose to forgive.
o Forgiveness does not mean that we ignore or minimize the pain or injury that others
have caused us.
 On the contrary, we accept and name the pain for what it is, then we freely and
willingly intend, choose, and decide to forgive without counting the cost.
 Because forgiveness must come from the mind and will, we must have a good grasp of the
reasons for forgiveness and the benefits of forgiveness.
o Reasons for forgiveness
 Forgiveness is an act of obedience toward Jesus who repeatedly calls us to forgive
others.
 All disobedience is sinful, and sinfulness wounds our relationship with God and our
prayer.
 By forgiving, we acknowledge that we too are forgiven sinners in constant need of
forgiveness.
 Jesus has declared that our forgiving others is a condition for us to have our own sins
forgiven.
 We do not want to have spiritual, physical, psychological repercussions on our
health and well-being.
o Benefits of forgiveness: When we actually set someone free through forgiveness,
 We instantaneously set ourselves free and can move on in life, ready to receive
other graces and to face other challenges in life.

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  Our sins are forgiven when we repent and our prayers are acceptable to God.
 Our prayers will have greater spiritual effect because God answers the prayers from
truly repentant and forgiving hearts.
 Our faith will be alive, and we will be sensitive and responsive to the will of God for
us at each moment. We remove the unforgiveness that is blocking our prayer to
God.
 We can actually act and live in faith when we actually forgive others. We can face
obstacles with lively faith saying to mountains, “Be uprooted and move from one
place to another.
 We experience the therapeutic value of forgiveness. Physical and emotional
wholeness come from receiving forgiveness and also giving it to others.
Unforgiveness is a poison in our bodies and souls.
 The door to heaven is open to us and we have a strong hope in the afterlife. God
forgives us and draws us to Him as we pray with truly forgiven and forgiving hearts.
 Our relationship with God and with one another is healed, increasing our socio-
spiritual and psychological life.
 We experience the power of conversion when we receive and also give forgiveness
to others.
 We become like Christ, who forgive throughout His life as He fulfilled His earthly
mission, climaxing in His forgiving His murderers on the cross. There is no fidelity to
our vocation without this constant forgiveness of others.
 We follow the example of the saints like St. Stephen who himself followed the
example of Jesus and forgave his executioners.

Efficacy of prayer
 We ask, “Does God really answer prayers?” “Why does God delay answering our prayers?”
o Unanswered prayers and delayed responses from God can also be a challenge to our
prayer life.
 To answer this challenge to prayer, we must remember the following things:
o God answers prayers according to His own free will and desire for us.
 We cannot force or manipulate God into doing what we want Him to do for us.
 Prayer is not to get God to do our will; but to allow us to enter into His own will.
o God answers all prayers always, and He does so according to our eternal and temporal
good. He always desires and wills what is truly good for us.
 We struggle in prayer when we expect God to answer our prayers immediately and
in the manner that we want.
 We not to remember that God answers prayers according to His will, in His own
timing and in His own way.
 In short, we want our will to be done, the way that we want it, and when we want it.
We are playing God.

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  However, when we are impatient as in times of temptations, distress, or urgency, we
can begin to doubt the existence of God or His willingness and ability to help us.
 We must always remember that God is always willing and ready to help us if we pray
with the right disposition, “So humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that
He may exalt you in due time. cast all your cares on Him because He cares for
you.”(1Pet 5:6-7)
 We anticipate God’s three possible answers to any prayer
 “Yes” i.e., God answers immediately, granting exactly what we ask for or more than
we even expected. Or He may give us something else which we need most for our
well-being and salvation.
 “Wait” i.e., God wants us to wait for some time for His good timing. He wants us to
wait for the following reasons:
To practice trusting patience. This patience is indispensable in life and in prayer.
See Ps 27:14, “Wait for the Lord, take courage; be stouthearted and wait on the
Lord.”
To bear our crosses and thus share in the suffering of Christ. See Is 40:29-31.
 “No” i.e., God refuses our prayer if is not according to His plan and desire for our
salvation.
We do not know what is to our eternal good and only God knows this. So, we
accept His “No” responses in prayer.
 We do not judge our prayers by how God responds to them – Yes, No, Wait – but on the
changes that take place in us as we pray.
 Prayer is not to change God’s mind; but it is meant to change our minds and hearts.
 God is immutable and cannot change. It changes us when we allow it to permeate
our entire lives, making us truly holy and virtuous people.
 Lastly, because we pray to a loving, living, compassionate and all-powerful God who
cares for us, He notices all our prayers and uses them for our good and for the good of
others.

In conclusion, let us remember the following points:

 Prayer is a gift from God. Beg for the grace to pray always as God would like us to pray.
 God has the initiative in prayer and He sustains our prayer. We have hope that He will give
us all that we need to pray well and fruitfully.
 We must be aware of how we are resisting or accepting His invitation to us in prayer.
 We must notice the gap between our prayer and our lives and begin to narrow that gap by
discernment and becoming a contemplative in action.
 Never stop seeking God in prayer, seeking to grow in prayer and to pray better so that we
can better live like Christ.
 We never graduate from the school of prayer because prayer is communion with an infinite
being, God. We never stop growing in prayer until we see this God face to face in heaven.

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