Some may think that the point of prayer is to get our own way with extra-terrestrial help, or to save us from facing the problems of life, or to provide an escape from 'reality', or to give an emotional uplift that makes you feel food. Some may think that prayer is a way of expanding our consciousness which is achieved by our own discipline and personal effort at self-improvement. These are caricatures of what Christian prayer really is. There may be a strand of truth in some of them, but they miss the real point of prayer.
To get to the true meaning of Christian prayer we have to go back to the beginning. We need first of all to face the truth, at once awesome and reassuring, that we are not alone in a time-bound universe; that another mode of being interpenetrates the life we live in sound and sight and sensation; that the very heart, in every sense of the word, of that other life is love.
Thus St Paul (Gal: 2) writes:
"I am living here and now this mortal life, but my real life is the faith I have in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."That gives the clue to where Christian prayer begins. We are not crying out alone in uncomprehending darkness. We are called into communion with One who loves us. In responding through prayer we begin to find our way to a love beyond imagining. That is what prayer is about.
The next point is that the further we are from seeing things as St Paul saw them, the greater is our need of prayer. We need the gift-love of God because without it we sink into spiritual death; and prayer is the only way to open our hearts to that love. It is the response God asks of us and for which he waits with infinite patience. We never can appreciate love by neglecting it, by turning away from it. And it rests with us to open the door to that love, admitting it with its gifts and demands into our lives. It is through prayer that every day we may open the door a little wider and come a little nearer to understanding who we are and what our lives are really for.
[Text from the Prologue of Saint Benedict's Prayer Book - Ampleforth Abbey Press]
