What is prayer?

Former chaplain to the shrine of Julian of Norwich, the late Robert Llewelyn, says 'prayer is waiting', in an extract from a new book of his previously unpublished writings …

I have been to Taizé only once and that was about 25 years ago. Frère Roger Schütz spoke to us on several occasions. I can remember just five words of what he said, and they have come back to me again and again. ‘For me’ , he said, ‘prayer is waiting.’ There is much in Scripture to support those words. ‘The Lord is good to those who wait for him’, says Jeremiah. ‘They that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength’ writes Isaiah. ‘I waited patiently for the Lord, and he heard my cry’, from the Psalms. And more than two thousand years later, and moving beyond the Bible to St John of the Cross, we read that in prayer we are to learn to rest with attention in loving waiting upon God.

And so, when the time for silence comes, I ask you to take up your position for prayer (and sitting is usually best for most of us), and then, having asked the help of the Holy Spirit, to be content to wait, patiently, expectantly, lovingly, longingly. Try to realise this is all that you can do for yourself. God must do the rest. See yourself as the parched earth looking upwards waiting patiently for the rain to fall. You can neither hasten the shower nor determine its intensity when it comes. You can only wait.

We all need healing. We are all wounded souls. We are like Humpty Dumpty: we have had a great fall, but mercifully, unlike him, there is one who can put us together again. And that one, at this time of waiting, stands at your side. ‘Rest in me’, he says, ‘and I in you.’ See yourself as resting in Jesus as a child rests in its mother’s arms. Allow him to bear you and enfold you in his love. See him standing there and calling your name: ‘John, Margaret, I love you, and I have loved you always as if you were the only person in the whole world to love. And now I want to heal you. Let me do the work. Give all the strains and stresses over to me.’ And then just wait. All you need is to desire God, to desire to pray, and then to wait. Have in your mind, if it helps, a short centring word or prayer which you can repeat silently as often as you need. Just the word ‘Jesus’, or the familiar ‘Be still, and know that I am God’ would do well. You may find it best to look mentally to the level of the heart.

It may not be long before distracting thoughts intrude. The rule here is that you may acknowledge them or recognise them, but you are not to develop them or encourage them, or in any way to get involved with them. Let them drop from your consciousness as a stone may drop into the sea. And if they won’t drop away but insist on floating on the periphery of consciousness, then be content to let them float. But do not attempt to draw them in to yourself. These distractions may be due to external circumstances, such as a neighbour’s radio, to which one may respond with forbearance or annoyance. If we choose the latter then an opportunity for growth in patience has been missed. Or they may have an interior cause. Anxieties, resentments, jealousies and the like may surface from the unconscious at such times that God’s healing light may play upon them. This process is not without pain. In either case, if we respond with patience and perseverance, a dying to self and a rising to new life in Christ is taking place. Here is a part of the Holy Spirit’s work of growth and sanctification.

This period of waiting is sure to be demanding. And you will find yourself asking: ‘Is it any use? Am I really praying?’ And here are words of comfort. And they come from St Augustine. ‘Your very desire is itself your prayer; if your desire is continued so is your prayer also. Whatever you are doing, if you are desiring to pray, you are praying. If you do not wish to cease from prayer, do not cease from desire’. And these words are true, the intention or the desire is prayer whether we are speaking of vocal prayer, eucharistic prayer, office prayer, Jesus prayer, rosary prayer or, as now, the prayer of the silence of the heart before God.

If, then, you are tempted to ask whether you are really praying, all you have to do is ask yourself one question. Do I desire to pray? Am I desiring God? And if the answer is yes, then you are truly at prayer. Even if all you can do is to desire to desire to pray that is enough.

Now, this is very important. Sometimes people may speak as if correct posture is

prayer. Sitting with a straight back assists prayer partly because it helps you to be attentive and alert, and partly because, it assists abdominal breathing. But correct posture in itself is not prayer. And correct breathing is not prayer. What then is prayer? It is the intention or desire to pray. Or you may hear that relaxation is prayer. Relaxation assists prayer because it helps us to be receptive. But relaxation in itself is not prayer. Prayer is the intention or desire to pray.

Or some may speak as if bodily stillness is prayer. Bodily stillness assists prayer because it helps to the stilling of the mind. But bodily stillness in itself is not prayer. Again, then, what is prayer? It is the intention or desire to pray.

Or not uncommonly today people may speak as if a change of consciousness is prayer. It may happen that in the silence we are taken from the ordinary workaday state of beta consciousness to that of alpha. This is a restful experience and where it is of the Holy Spirit it will be welcomed. But in itself an altered consciousness is not prayer. It can, for example, be induced by drugs or demonic forces; or simply by deep relaxation. What then is prayer? At the risk of being wearisome let it be said once more that it is the intention to pray, or the desire for God, which determines whether we are praying.

Undoubtedly in this period of waiting, waiting, we are sometimes taken hold of. The parched earth is rewarded with a shower of rain. St Antony the Great says that he prays best who does not know he is praying. Watch a group of children at play. They are so engrossed in their game that they do not know they are playing. There is no corner in a child’s mind which can allow him to say, ‘Now, I am playing’. If, perchance, he does say that, then the game for him has at once lost some of its perfection. It is the same at prayer. Periods may pass when there is no corner of the mind which can say, ‘Now, I am praying’. Just as you cannot say in bed at night, ‘Now, I am sleeping’, but can only say in the morning , ‘I slept’, so you cannot now say at prayer, ‘Now, I am praying,’ but can only say later, ‘I prayed’. I am not speaking of any exalted state. If the phone rings you will hear it at once. These showers of rain, as it were, come and go, and the parched earth cannot determine their time or intensity. So, too, these periods of which I have spoken depend on God and not on us. They may be waited for, but not sought, least of all striven after: striving would in any case be in vain.

Prayer is waiting, intending, desiring God. Prayer, we might say, is a holding on to God, until waiting, waiting, waiting, we move into the knowledge that we are being held.

Taken from a talk at a Taizé service at Norwich Roman Catholic Cathedral on 24 November, 1995 (adapted)

This is an extract from Robert Llewelyn’s Why Pray? Unpublished writings by the former chaplain to the shrine of Julian of Norwich, available now in paperback, priced £6.99. The book was compiled by Denise Treissman and endorsed by Rowan Williams.