Reflection from Fr. Tristianto: What Is Prayer?

Christianity is not a message or revelation about a God who remains distant. God was near, not far and that we could open ourselves to God's presence. In Augustine's words, God is more intimate to me than I am to myself. God's self-revelation in the person of Jesus means that God is both the giver and the gift itself. In Jesus, who made us his brothers and sisters and poured out upon us his Spirit, we have been given a share in God's inner life as a Trinity of persons. Christian prayer is always Trinitarian; we pray to the Father in the Son through the Spirit. A great part of the mystery of the Trinity is precisely the mystery of our own share in the divine life. "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him" (John 14:23).

But we do not always recognize this divine indwelling. It is not God's distance but God's very nearness that makes it so hard for us to be aware of God's presence. God surrounds us, more closely than the air we breathe. Prayer puts us in touch with that divine life. It nourishes our life in God just as the gentle rain falling on the earth softens it and makes it fertile.

There are many forms of prayer, but basically all prayer is an opening of ourselves to God; it is raising our minds and hearts to God. Or, in that wonderful image of Henri Nouwen, to pray is to relax, to let go, to open one's hand and spread expectation because God is near and wants to fill us. We pray of necessity because without God we are rootless and alone, and our lives lack depth. We pray in awe because God is the Creator and we are creatures, the work of God's hands.

Prayer is inseparable from the life of God's people in the Bible. One cannot read the psalms without a vivid sense of how real God's presence was to the Jewish people. They sing of the reality of God, in praise and thanksgiving when God's presence was experienced. What is most remarkable is that the psalms convey this profound sense of what it meant to live in Covenant.

The Gospels present Jesus as a man of prayer. He followed the religious traditions of his people, participating regularly in their official Sabbath worship "according to his custom" (Luke 4:16). Luke especially stresses Jesus at prayer; his experience at the Jordan after his baptism takes place while he was praying (3:21). Luke shows Jesus praying before other important moments in his own life (5:16; 6:12; 9:18, 28; 11:1; 22:42; 23:46) and counseling others to pray (11:5-13; 18:1, 9-14; 21:36; 22:40). One beautiful saying of Jesus encourages the disciples to persevere in prayer.

The Gospels present Jesus' relationship with God with the familiar term that he used in his own prayer, addressing God as "Abba". Abba is a family word that means like "loving father," the kind of word a son or daughter would use within the intimacy of the family. No Jew at that time would have dared address God in such familiar terms; indeed, devout Jews would not even pronounce God's holy name; they would always use as "the Blessed One" (Mark 14:61) rather than pronounce the sacred name. But the fact that Jesus regularly spoke to God in such familiar fashion suggests to us a great deal not just about his own experience of God but about the nature of prayer as well. Prayer is simply speaking in a very personal way with the God who loves and cares for each of us. Saint Theresa of a Villa said "Prayer is an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything."