Prayer is God’s activity in our lives. Yet it is also our decided turning to God. Prayer is simple communication. In addition, it is profound self-examination. Prayer is carefully cultivated awareness, as well as spontaneous and “inexpressable groanings” (Romans 8:26). Some of the following definitions of prayer will be familiar, confirming what you have known as prayer all along. Others will challenge or extend your notions of prayer, hopefully sparking new insights. As you read the following definitions and quotations, you will see that they have been gathered from several religious and philosophical traditions. Each belief system adds another dimension to our discussion, allowing us to develop a more comprehensive answer to the question, “What is prayer?”

Prayer Is What God Does in Us and Through Us

In Christian Scripture, Jesus Christ tells his followers, “You do not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). These moving words instruct us to recognize God’s activity in our lives. God actively manifests in us, and many spiritualists propose that God calls our attention to that presence by stimulating a deep longing within us. That longing creates the desire, even the instinct, to pray. Therefore, it follows that prayer is God working within us.

Sister Briege McKenna, known internationally as a healer, has been traveling throughout the world for many years, providing comfort, calm, and healing to others. In addition, Sister Briege is the author of the book Miracles Do Happen. Prayer is the essence of her life, and she has many valuable things to say about it. When Sister Briege was interviewed by Father Jim Caffrey for a video titled “On Prayer,” the Catholic nun discussed how prayer rises out of a hunger. This hunger, seemingly innate to human beings, is especially painful during times of crisis and stress. In our most vulnerable moments, we are naturally drawn toward a greater Source. We somehow know that there’s a benevolent font of power and love that is accessible to us. In fact, Sister Briege herself began to develop her prayer life more fully when she was suffering with crippling arthritis. At this time, concentrating on the phenomenon of prayer, she realized, “Prayer isn’t what I do, but what God does inside of us.”

According to this viewpoint, God places the hunger in our souls; God triggers the prayer reaction. Thus, every prayer is something that God is working within us and expressing through us. We can choose to be receptive, but God takes action through prayer, bringing us into closer contact with the Absolute. So when we pray, we should feel confident that God is with us, sharing in the experience.

Prayer Is a Conversation With the Divine

The most basic definition of prayer is, simply, a conversation with God. We directly engage God in prayer, whether the mode of communication is language, silent meditation, dance, or any other form. Importantly, prayer is a dialogue, which means that listening is necessarily involved. For prayer to be truly effective, we must be willing to still ourselves and hear what God is trying to do in our lives. Unfortunately, many of us have a tendency to bubble over with requests and complaints. It is important to realize that conversation is a two-way street.

Prayer is not just an ordinary conversation. It is a special mode of communication, because it is reserved for and given wholly to God. Yes, God is always present. But through prayer, we place ourselves deep within that presence by turning our full attention to it. During the conversation of prayer, we surrender to the moment and rise above limited notions of time and space. Everything else takes a back seat to the very important discussion with God. As a result, a strong relationship is formed.

Think about your relationship with your best friend or your spouse. Conversation is a vital part of that relationship. This often involves spoken conversation, but can also take the form of unspoken thoughts communicated through body gestures, movements of the eyes, smiles, even emotional empathy. These conversations are powerful and liberating. They are the stuff that your relationship is made of. Likewise, your conversations with God—your prayers—are the blocks on which your spirituality is best built.

In the preface to The Power of Prayer, edited by Dale Salwak, we learn that prayer “is a way to make contact with God to feel His presence even more surely.” Therefore, it is a conversation that provides us with confidence, closeness, and comfort. By placing ourselves within the walls of this conversation, we remind ourselves that God is a real presence in our lives, not an intellectual concept or a distant myth.

Of course, this conversation can be made up of several elements. When we ask ourselves why we pray, we can loosely group the reasons into four categories: praise, thanksgiving, petition, and confession.

Prayer Is an Attitude of Eagerness and Love

As Lawrence Lovasik states in The Basic Book of Catholic Prayer: How to Pray and Why, prayer is “an active attitude of the soul” that involves “an eager longing for grace.” Yes, more than words, prayer is an attitude. Unfortunately, the term attitude has developed a negative connotation: “He’s got such an attitude!” When we think of attitude, we think of sassy kids on the playground. We think of a corporate cold-shoulder. Yet in a wider sense, attitude is the way we function and hold ourselves. And that’s exactly what prayer is—the way we function and hold ourselves in God’s presence.

When we approach God in prayer, we should aim to do so with sincerity, devotion, and humility. After all, God doesn’t need our prayers; God’s been doing just fine for the past couple of billion years. We need our prayers. Prayer is the way that we come to terms with our joys, wants, and desires. It is the way we answer our longing for communion and compassion, and the way we seek ultimate completion. Therefore, effective prayer is performed with zeal and eagerness, and carries a healthy affection for the creative force behind our world.

Prayer Is Remembrance

In his poem “Prayer (I),” George Herbert defines prayer, among other things, as “the soul in paraphrase.” The word paraphrase is poignantly used, for it refers to re-expressing something that is already there. If prayer is the re-expression of the soul, the redefining of ourselves in our universe and within God, then prayer is remembrance. We are turning back to something we inherently know. We remember our Source, and we go back home through prayer.

The idea of remembrance is brilliantly woven into the concepts of Buddhism. Meditating, in Buddhist practice, involves freeing oneself of the blindness caused by earthly life and the senses. We become attached to things and ideas during this lifetime, convincing ourselves that there is something permanent about status, ego, and action. But Buddhism teaches us that nothing is permanent, that desirous attachment is misleading, and that we essentially have to shed these delusions to rid ourselves of suffering. Only when we are freed from the suffering of ignorance can we attain ultimate liberation, which is the loss of the self into the original, perfect state.

Buddhism does not include a concept of God, but shares something in common with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam when all of the latter define God as Perfect and All-encompassing Love. It is there that Buddhists can parallel their idea of the ultimate state—nirvana—with what Westerners have come to call God. When a practitioner of Buddhism attains nirvana, the occurrence is considered a reawakening. Similarly, prayer awakens us, again, to our more sacred and truer nature.

Prayer Is Medicine for the Human Spirit

This definition is derived from a phrase His Holiness the Dalai Lama used during a talk on spirituality at Gethsemani Monastery. In discussing the role of spirituality in our lives, the Dalai Lama referred to religion as medicine, stating that religions—all of them—”have a spiritual potential to help humanity by promoting human happiness and satisfaction.” He explained that religion works toward curing human suffering.

Likewise, prayer serves as medicine for the human soul or spirit. Prayer has the power to heal our suffering, even if it doesn’t take away every pain and discomfort. Through prayer, we learn to relinquish the pathological control that so many of us seek. We subdue the ego and find greater peace as part of a whole. Our bodies and minds grow healthier in response to the calm found in prayer.

Prayer Is Taking Part in the World

In John Dalrymple’s book Simple Prayer, the author states that prayer is partnership with God. It is offering ourselves in attention and service to God, and therefore accepting our role in making this world a better place. The energy and ideas that we gather through prayer can heal, comfort, renew, and create.

Viewing prayer as service—as the effort to share in creation of the world and bring all things closer to God—helps us avoid self-centered prayer. At a very shallow level, prayer is asking for things that will better our own lives, here and now. If we approach prayer in such a manner, it is nothing more than a means to get what we want. Like a spoiled child, we think that if we kick and scream enough, God will give in and magically produce the treats of life. Prayer is so much more than that.

Dalrymple suggests that we use the metaphor of a window to cultivate a healthy attitude about prayer as service. When we look at a window, we can do three things. First, we can look at the glass, perhaps noticing that it is dirty, broken, or even clean. When we do this, we miss the view outside, and the window is not used to its potential. Second, we can look at the window’s reflection to see ourselves. The window then becomes an opportunity for vanity or self-preoccupation. Again, we lose the view. Finally, we can look through the window, allowing it to serve its greater purpose. Peering through the windowpane, to what is beyond, we come to learn so much more about our surroundings and our world in general.

Prayer is that window. It has the capacity to be used for great insight and contact—to be the means by which wonderful ideas can be created and great needs in the world can be identified. But we need to look through prayer to see God. We shouldn’t stop at the window’s glass, seeing only what is immediately in front of us—our immediate pains and the desires for instant gratification. We shouldn’t use prayer simply to focus on ourselves, as that, in the end, is never fulfilling. We should use prayer to its fullest, to gain necessary insight and then spring into action in our world.

Prayer Is Introspection

According to Rabbi Irwin Katsof’s book How to Get Your Prayers Answered, the Hebrew word for prayer is li-heet-pallel. The latter part of the word—pallel—means to inspect, examine, while the initial part—li-heet—makes the term reflexive. Therefore, prayer is self-inspection, self-examination. Through prayer, we learn about ourselves at deeper levels. And we come closer to God because we begin to understand how God can change us, not how we can change God.

Through the self-inspection conducted in prayer, we are honest, open, and sincere with ourselves. We tap into the divine expression inside of us, gathering energy and finding capabilities to which we might not normally gain access. Prayer is stepping away from the hustle and bustle of distractions. In this quiet place, we can see where we are weak and where we are strong. We can understand our role in the world. This leads to the next definition of prayer, which involves change. In order to change, first one must examine the self.

Prayer Is a Path to Transformation

While we have cautioned ourselves against using prayer solely as a means to concentrate on the self, it is healthy to use the insight gained in prayer to transform ourselves for the better. Through prayer, we cultivate a greater eye for the good and the bad, the healthy and the unhealthy. We see things for what they are, and attain the bigger picture of what’s truly important. As a result, prayer spurs us on to personal change.

The Sufi movement of Islam teaches that the individual must transform the self, moving away from the ego, in order to achieve spiritual perfection. Lives of prayer bring us closer to perfection, and thus Perfection. The ego causes distortions in our vision; when we allow the ego to run our lives, it’s as though we are putting on someone else’s glasses. We can’t see things correctly because we don’t have the right prescription. Prayer can be likened to our own pair of glasses. It gives us clarity and helps us to mirror the attributes of God. And with improved vision, we see that each person is not a separate entity, but a part of a beautiful whole.

Through prayer, the individual becomes God-centered, not self-centered. It is at this point that transformation takes place. All of a sudden, the material world is less important; the happiness afforded by financial wealth, worldly status, and the like, proves to be quite unfulfilling. Sure, the luxuries might feel good, but in the face of a much greater happiness, they are not worth the damaging struggle.

The transformation may be unsettling at first; we may resist letting go of the sturdy selves that we have built up and decorated. Thomas Merton wrote, “Sometimes prayer, meditation, and contemplation are ‘death’—a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance.” But that’s a good thing, albeit, an uncomfortable one. Loss of the self as an isolated “one” means celebration in a more fulfilling One. By seeing the insignificance of our own egos and their wants, we realize a better quality of life.

Prayer Is a Source of Protection

While addressing the definition of prayer, we cannot avoid the commonly held belief that prayer also serves as a force of good against certain forces of evil. This book is not a study of how prayer can combat the demonic, but it would be irresponsible not to make any mention of this aspect of prayer. Several religions, including Christianity and Islam, involve fervent beliefs in destructive spiritual forces. When there is such a belief in the demonic, prayer is a source of protection—physical and mental. It forms a shield around the practitioner, so to speak, of good intent and holy thought. It puts the practitioner under the favor of God, who is ultimately far more powerful than any “bad” force.

And prayer can strengthen the individual who prays against the vices and temptations within herself—lust, greed, envy, sloth, violent tendencies, anger, and other flaws that keep a person from being the best that she can be—just as it protects the individual who seeks protection from the harmful actions of tainted outsiders. Whether fighting an enemy without or within, many people view prayer as a source of enhanced immunity against what is not ultimately good.

Prayer Is a Dynamic Force

In the bestseller The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale states that “prayer power is a manifestation of energy.” This energy can heal the mind, revitalize the body despite aging, provide guidance, and increase your skills of discernment, just to name a few benefits. Prayer “releases and keeps power flowing freely.” It is a dynamic force.

Peale understands prayer in terms of the sending out of vibrations—to others and to Go. The human body emits magnetic forces. Peale proposes that prayer tunes up the many sending stations that give off magnetic power. As a result of the tune-up, striking power can pass through one being into another being and into the world, creating all sorts of effects. Prayer is a force, much like any other force, only its products are love, sympathy, support, and the like. Vibrations, triggered through prayer, spark many wonderful occurrences.

Prayer Is Giving Glory

In addition to the complex roles that prayer plays in our personal development and the development of our world, prayer is plain and simple adoration. Reveling in God, simply for the love of God, is the highest form of prayer. It is in giving glory that we find selfless happiness, because in doing so, we celebrate the source of unconditional and unending love.

Listen to any Christian hymn of praise to God. Watch the impassioned love displayed in the prayer gestures of the Muslim. Witness the reverent adoration of heads bowed during the recitation of a Hebrew prayer. Giving glory, or even the observation of giving glory, is healing and freeing. It is the ultimate purpose of prayer—to unite with Truth and find ecstasy in it. A surrender of the self leads to a sharing in a moment of glory, offered to God and enjoyed by the person who prays. We give glory during any kind of prayer—be it request, confession, adoration, or thanksgiving—because we come before God in recognition of God’s love and knowledge.

DESTRUCTIVE DEFINITIONS OF PRAYER

We have considered many different aspects of prayer, and have found many ways to define it. But we can increase our understanding of prayer by thinking about what prayer is not. The power of prayer can be misunderstood and maligned, as evident in the following inaccurate definitions of prayer.

Prayer Is a Means to an End

Prayer to God is a healthy action in and of itself because, through it, we communicate with our Source and experience completion. Using it as a means to achieve an end—like some power tool that you could purchase at a hardware store—is destructive. If you view prayer merely as a way to get something, you reduce it to a one-dimensional, self-centered practice, and will surely be unfulfilled when your requests aren’t answered in just the way you want. Prayer should be cherished for its benefit at the very moment it is experienced, not for what it can do in the future.

Prayer is not a stride toward the finish line. It is not a competition or a race: “If I say the right words, I’ll win the prize! And the sooner the better!” That’s no way to pray! Prayer is not your answer to God’s exam or a bargaining device. It is simply a way to come into contact with your God in sincere and life-enhancing communication.

Prayer Is Passivity

It is certainly true that one of the benefits of prayer is an increase in tranquility. During prayer, we gain calm and insight, and therefore are often able to reduce the scattered thoughts in our harried minds. However, to view prayer as passive is to miss out on a large part of the prayer experience. Turning to God in prayer necessarily takes zeal and effort. That’s why prayer is often referred to as the “exercise of the spirit.” That does not mean that our muscles start moving, but our spirits certainly do! The power of prayer enlivens our spirits, awakening our creativity and stimulating our desire for change.

We have learned that God inspires prayer. Yet your response to God is your choice, not something that just happens to you. Thus, though prayer may be a relaxing practice in the way that it encourages physical and mental peace, it is nonetheless a practice—a chosen activity that includes your active participation. It involves remaining open and carefully listening. In fact, Thomas Merton spoke of the spiritual life as “a matter of keeping awake.” And the greatest spiritualists would argue that, in prayer, you are most awake, being freed from the bonds of delusion.

Prayer Is a Solution to All My Problems

We tire from responsibility. We grow fatigued from work and stress. Wouldn’t it be nice to put everything in someone else’s hands and say, “Here. Fix it.” Some people approach prayer in this manner, and it is most unhealthy. When the desired solution does not reveal itself, such people blame God and live in anger.

Prayer is not a means of instant gratification. It is not a pill for all ailments. In fact, prayer involves cooperating and working with God to make changes in our lives and in the world. It often takes a lot of patience and perseverance. Prayer does not necessarily spell out or immediately trigger solutions to the troubles in our lives. Instead, through prayer, we gain insight and direction so that we can work productively toward a solution.

Prayer Is a Magical Formula

How easy it is to think of prayer as mysterious magic! We want to chant a few lines reverently, and then wait for the stars to start spinning in our favor. The truth is that prayer’s power is not very mysterious. We know it comes from God and the expression of God in every being. We know it is effective when we pray with sincerity, confidence, and openness. There is no way that every prayer will be answered according to our will, but through prayer, we understand that God's will is best. This makes perfect sense.

Yes, the miraculous does happen through prayer, but that’s because the Divine’s nature, quite plainly, exceeds time, space, and the laws of physics. God is best not understood as a robed apothecary who mixes sparkling potions in his castle. And prayer is best not understood as a human’s opportunity to exercise power over the universe’s energy. Truthfully, if we need to attribute all sorts of unfamiliar and frightening qualities to prayer, then our spiritual lives must be very boring.

Some people use prayer as a source of entertainment, as if prayer were a mode of magic. They focus on the possibility of the paranormal, gearing their expectations toward visions and trance-like ecstasies. But prayer is not a drug, and is not about pleasing oneself or having idle fun. If a person turns to prayer in hopes of cultivating supernatural abilities, she is missing the point.

CONCLUSION

Prayers come in all forms and all sizes. Yet we have the tendency to settle comfortably into one or two understandings of prayer, never really pushing ourselves to probe more deeply into the practice.




Copyright © 2001 by Helene Ciaravino

From How to Pray by Helene Ciaravino (Garden City Park, New York: Square One Publishers, 2001).