“The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and [Christ] himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2725).
Yes, as we see in the readings for Oct. 16, Christ teaches us to pray, presenting the “battle” of prayer to us: “pray always without becoming weary” (Lk 18:1).
Why is this a battle? And with whom? The Catechism (Nos. 2726-2728) answers us.
First, prayer is a battle because we often misunderstand what prayer is, becoming discouraged and ceasing to pray (or maybe never really even beginning to pray!). Prayer is, on our part, a response to God’s free and unmerited grace. Prayer, then, is first God’s movement within our hearts. The Holy Spirit initiates our prayer, stirring up our hearts to seek God, “overshadowing” us. Thus, if we are seeking to know God through prayer, then we must be open to the movement of God within our hearts. If we kneel down with an open and responsive posture – with humility — we will not become discouraged, or weary.
| October 16 – 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time |
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Ex 17:8-13 |
Second, prayer is a battle because it requires vigilance. To pray to God is to recognize the one to whom we pray, even as he remains invisible to us and seemingly unknowable, inaccessible. Thus, the modern mentality of our “present world” often deters us from prayer: I cannot entrust myself, my thoughts and my feelings, to someone I cannot see, hear or touch! The world around us conditions us to trust only that which we can “know” and “verify by reason and science.” But faith, not knowledge, is the necessary condition for prayer. We come to “see” the Lord precisely by entrusting ourselves to him. And so, if we desire to pray, we must remain vigilant and unwearied in faith.
Third, “our battle has to confront what we experience as failure in prayer.” These seeming failures could be many, but their roots will always be found anchored in our pride. We must be willing to ponder God’s will for us in our hearts and to conform ourselves to that will. This is the purpose of prayer and the “always” of prayer: to be formed according to God’s will, not our own. Not only should we pray always without becoming weary, but we should ask the Holy Spirit for a conversion of heart.
Perhaps it is becoming obvious with whom we battle when we pray. Yes, prayer involves an interior battle with ourselves. We battle our pride and our lack of faith.
But we are also battling with “the Tempter” (Catechism, No. 2752), who desires to persuade us that God’s love for us is but an illusion. We weary of prayer because we are tempted to think God does not care to respond, or even to hear us. We are tempted to cease praying, doubled-down in pride, weary in our faith.
Thankfully, we have concrete examples of those who “battled” well: the great examples of perseverance in Sunday’s readings, Moses and Paul. We have Christ who was himself taught to pray by his mother, Mary. But Paul also points us to examples closer to home:
“Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it” (2 Tm 3:14).
Who taught you about God? About perseverance in faith? Who taught you to pray? What is it about their example of faith that brought you “into the battle” yourself, willing to fight and hopeful for perseverance?
Remembering these examples alongside “the great figures of prayer” helps us to pray simply by concretizing the fight. In them we see the graced response to the spiritual battle: ongoing conversion of heart, arms steadily raised to God in prayer.
Catherine Cavadini, Ph.D., is the assistant chair of the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Theology and director of its master’s program in theology.
