In the last letter we had scratched the surface concerning the topic of prayer. Maybe what I can do in this letter is to dig a little deeper on some additional aspects of prayer.

At the very outset I must point out to you that we must beware of what has sometimes been referred to as the error of Stoicism - the belief that what we experience once, we must continually experience. Life is not like that and we are foolish if we think that we can maintain an emotional high that often accompanies the beginning of a life of prayer. Prayer demands discipline and it is not surprising that so many people fail to stay with their prayers. We start off with the best of intentions which slowly grind to a halt, but, we must persevere.

I thought that maybe in response to your questions in your letter, we could start by looking at the different types of prayer. The earliest prayer that occurs in the life of most of us is petitionary prayer. This is prayer for something that we want whether for ourselves or for our family or for our acquaintances. Sometimes this type of prayer is seen as something which is at a low level of spirituality, as if expressing anxiety which is seen almost as equivalent to a lack of faith, but in this we would be mistaken. Petitionary prayer is something that is natural to us and we have examples of its use by Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane he petitioned to have him avoid the cup that was being offered him. In general, it is good to foster a habit of turning to God in all of our needs, whether large or small, and this develops a habit of turning to God so that it becomes as a second nature to us. One of the other criticisms levelled at petitionary prayer is to point out that God already knows what we need, so why do we have to turn to Him with our requests? There are several answers that could be given here. God surely knows our needs, but do we? Have we analyzed our requests and have we seen the repercussions of our petitions being granted? But there is a deeper mystery here and that concerns the relationship between God the creator and His creation. This relationship is paradoxical and mysterious and by praying our prayers of petition, what we are doing is exploring and trying to better understand this paradox.

Another question arises about spontaneous prayers, that is prayers using our own words as opposed to prayers that have been written down and used for many years. I don't see that these are necessarily mutually exclusive choices; I think one can use both because they address different situations. Set prayers teach us sound doctrine and remind us what we ought to do. This, I think is what is valid in them. Spontaneous prayers may feel more immediate and have more ardor in them but they can sometimes be distracting as we concentrate on what to say as opposed to focusing our attention on God. Another important class of prayers would involve gratitude, being thankful. Very often the attitude that we take is that the good offered to us right now is rejected because our attention is on some other good that we want. Gratitude in our prayers helps us to struggle against this.

The question is often raised about how effective our prayers are. Isn't it true that our prayers are often unanswered? This is a difficult question, especially in light of the fact that a promise is made in Scripture that whatever we ask for in prayer will be granted to us. There is always a problem in determining the effectiveness of prayer. We can never prove that prayer is causal, in other words, we cannot prove that something happened because of our prayers. Even if a miracle occurs, we cannot definitively show that it was our prayers that specifically caused the miracle - it may have happened anyway. Prayer and the result that we prayed for are linked through faith in God's character. By praying we affirm that God has a certain character - that He loves us and wants what is best for us. If prayer were obviously causal it would become like a magical incantation and this would not serve for the good of anyone. If prayers are seemingly unanswered, if God seems to cast us down and to punish us, what this does is to show that we are not in some subjective dream world but that our faith has an objective side to it. But sometimes prayers are not answered for our own good. Towards the end of the Lord's Prayer there is a petition "lead us not into temptation". The term here translated as temptation in the Greek would more correctly be equivalent to "lead us not into trying circumstances". The location of this phrase is near the very end of the prayer almost as a statement that I have asked for many things but you judge if they should be granted lest they lead me into trying circumstances.

Prayer underscores that we are not ultimate. It reminds us that we are in a drama, a play with many scenes, acts and sometimes it is important to turn to the Author of the play and try to get a better bearing on where the play is heading and what our part really is. What is important in this is obedience. Now I know that this word has taken a battering in our day. Obedience reminds one of slaves and subservience. But again we fail to understand because we have lost the underlying meaning of the word obedience. Obedience comes form the Latin ob-audire which means to listen. Being obedient means to pay attention and to listen and that is what we are supremely called to do in prayer. There is a level of prayer achieved by those who have persevered and have received what is referred to as the gift of silent prayer where it is as if God is praying to God through us (another one of those paradoxes which baffle our reason). The problem is that we read books about saints who achieve these states and we are ready next week to join them, not realizing the cost in time and pain that this has taken to achieve. We think this is the norm (it would be in an unfallen world) and when we fail we get discouraged and give up. In the Old Testament there is a section on the blessing of the temple built by Solomon and he utters the following words in his prayer: each man knows "the plague of his heart". Before we start to grow in prayer we must realize who we are and in what situation we find ourselves. We must repent and change our ways but we must start at the point where we find ourselves. In this sense, prayer is very individualized and what may work for others, may not do so for us.

You raised the question of prayer for those who have died and what the point is of praying for them if their fate is sealed. When we talk about the dead, we tread on something about which we do not have all that much information. We therefore must be cautious about what we state. Humanity is shrouded in mystery, although we sometimes do not think so and the relationship that we have to each other, even in this life and in this world, has much that is not obvious. We are somehow one and yet separate. And this state of one-ness and yet separateness persists even with those who have predeceased us. The barrier of physical contact has been placed between us but this is not an ultimate barrier. So, just as we prayed for these friends of ours when they were alive on this earth, so we pray for them now. On the fundamental scale, nothing has really changed. As to your statement that their fate has been finalized, I would not be so hasty agreeing with you. We cannot state with absolute certitude what happens to anyone - even the fate of Judas cannot be spoken of as fixed. It is true that the experiences of those who have died is very different from ours, but what these experiences exactly are we cannot say. However, you should remember that it is pointed out in the Gospels that God is the God of the living and not of the dead. For God there is not as great a distinction as for us between those physically alive and those who are not. I think probably the best advice I can give you is to continue to pray for the dead.

There is something else that I want to say that places an impediment to praying. In the past, one of the practises of penance was to charge someone to say a certain number of prayers. The message that this sent to believers is still with us - it seems that having to say prayers is almost like a form of punishment. This is so far off the mark that one wonders how this state of affairs ever arose.

In a sense, Theophilus, I dreaded writing these last two letters to you. As you probably know, the Bible is the most purchased book in the world but it is also, probably the least read. Similarly with prayer. There are many books on prayer written with all kinds of advice but remember - prayer is not something that you read about and speculate about but something that you have to practise in order to understand. I hope that my words will encourage you to follow this advice and to at least partially assuage my guilty conscience, I will write about the practical side of prayer in my next letter.

Yours, as always,