NB: My article which appeared in the The Examiner of Mumbai Diocese
Praying has not been easy for anyone. And yet the different Religions ask their follower to pray and New Testament continuously reminds us to pray unceasingly. Our Lord Himself taught us the “Our Father”, and all the generations of Christians before us have left behind thousands of prayer formulas valid and effective even today. We don’t have to recite the prayers without praying them. St Francis of Assisi expressed that one needs to become what one prays. St. Francis accepted prayer as the mysterious and placed at the deepest center of his being. But he did experienced difficulties to understand prayer and to pray meaningfully in communion with the Father in Heaven. But while reading the life of St. Francis one can immediately notice that there was a deep desire, need and longing in his heart which was aching like an incurable wound inside him to communicate and dialogue with God.
Today the contemporary man is feeling the burden and disadvantage of the explosion of knowledge and impact of the electronic communication especially the social media. Today we are suffering from the stress and strain and many other psychosomatic sicknesses, which were unknown to St. Francis. Today there are many TV gurus who speak of “the depth reality” and “inner dimensions” of “deeper level”. So the craze and rush all over among men and women is to use the various existing forms of prayer, meditation and contemplation. St. Francis felt the need and his concern for prayers was of tremendous importance in that period in Assisi, Italy. He realized that without prayer and intimate union with the Lord it was just impossible to be a disciple of the Lord and to proclaim His Word to the Society with many emerging serious problems.
Today the age of technology has drawn us into a torrent, which diverts our progress to interiority and draws us to exteriority. This torrent and methods robs us of time for reflection and prevents us attainment of ourselves, of our very self. Whereas St. Francis went along with the torrent of the Gospel and founded his meditation on the Word of God which drew him into interiority and communion with the Lord and the Creation. St. Francis was able to lie more spontaneously in the prayer and meditation without having to exert himself as deliberately as we have to do today. Francis found inspiration for his prayer life in what he lived every day. He sought solitary places where he could converse with God more intimately. Wishing to find himself close to God, Francis would go into deserted churches, such as San Damiano, where he prayed so earnestly before the well-known Crucifix. And his personal prayer became so much part of him that, as Thomas Celano tells us, that his whole life became prayer. Events, situations, people and nature brought him ever close to God. “ Whether he was walking or sitting, at home or aboard, whether he was working or resting, he was so fervently devoted to prayer that he seemed to have dedicated to it, not only his heart and soul, but all his efforts and his time.”
It is very important to remember that prayer for Francis was an encounter and a relationship, a relationship that was deep, and this relationship was not forced either on Francis or on God. And this relationship began and developed in mutual freedom and constant speaking to God. Prayer was understood as a dialogue with a personal, loving and merciful God. In this dialogue Francis communicated with God with all his heart and soul to be a true son and disciple. This dialogue is understood to be a meeting between the creator and the creature. In this dialogue the creature pours out his heart to the creator in humility. This dialogue is a bilateral action rather than a unilateral one. It is a meeting of God and a person in an address of love and response. What person says or does is an essential part of the prayer and this dialogue demands that we need to speak. And in order to have the dialogue with God Francis used many forms and ways. For Francis prayer was meant to be just this: the Christian communicating with the living God. Unless there be such genuinely personal dialogue with God, it is difficult to enjoy prayer. Francis in Prayer spoke and expressed what he believed about God and about his relationship with God. Francis has Jesus as model for his prayer life because Jesus in the Gospel is presented as having dialogue with His Father. For Jesus this speaking with the Father assumed many forms in different circumstances of his life. There were prayers of praise, gratitude, submission, and trust. Thus with the example of Jesus Francis’ prayer became a constant dialogue and speaking to God in all the moments of his life and in many forms.
In solitude, Francis discovered that the dialogue of prayer is possible because God takes the initiatives and gives us the means of praying. He had found the key to the life of Christian prayer to be the ‘mind of the Spirit’ within us. Francis became aware in his solitude that prayer is something more than a routine mental activity; he saw that it was, above all, a manifestation of the Spirit in him. He used prayer for a loving dialogue with God and his whole life became a prayer and dialogue with God. For Francis prayer was everything in his life because he derived a mighty force and strength to respond to God’s call. “Prayer was his link, his lifeline, with the Father. Francis realized that the presence of God pervaded every aspect of his life, once he abandoned himself to God. Realizing this in his life, he related himself to God in varying ways” (R. Mrozinski, Franciscan Prayer life). Thomas Celano again portrays Francis in prayer and says: “In it he would render an account to his judge; beseech his Father; talk with his Friend; he rejoiced with the Bridegroom” (2Cel,95). From this loving dialogue with the Lord he received comfort, guidance, and revelations of God’s wisdom; conversed intimately with his love, Christ. For this dialogue he always sought out abandoned churches or lonely places to converse with his master.
His biographers show him always praying on very possible occasion, casting all of his cares and needs on God through prayer. All through out his life prayer helped him to remain attentive to God’s presences, to live in contemplation. And through this loving dialogue he received profound pleasure and joy and the spiritual courage to face the world. Prayer came spontaneously to his lips in the form of praise and every being, animate and inanimate, led him to contemplation and helped him to discover and have dialogue with God. For Francis, prayer was greeting God, listening to him in his heart and speaking to him in simple words.
But we also know that Francis too had to face many obstacles in his life of prayer, it was not all “sweetness and light”. We have seen how he used to seek silence in order to pray. All the retreats into solitude during the first years of his conversion were periods of painful purification of his desires. But in this struggle the Holy Spirit was his guide and good instructor. With the help of the Holy Spirit Francis learnt that he needed endurance and perseverance in the life of prayer.
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