Prayer is not asking - Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God in silence and listening

“You don’t know how to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and as soon as you have said, ‘Lord, I don’t know how to pray!’ you can be sure you’ve already begun.”  - Saint Josemaría Escrivá

Feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist 

(Scripture text: 1 Jn 1:1-4)

Beloved:

What was from the beginning,

what we have heard,

what we have seen with our eyes,

what we looked upon

and touched with our hands

concerns the Word of life --

for the life was made visible;

we have seen it and testify to it

and proclaim to you the eternal life

that was with the Father and was made visible to us?

what we have seen and heard

we proclaim now to you,

so that you too may have fellowship with us;

for our fellowship is with the Father

and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

We are writing this so that our joy may be complete.

St. John knew Jesus personally and lived in an intimate communion with the Lord; the kind that only comes through prayer.

We can do so as well. St John, the beloved disciple, shows us the way. He prayed.

Do we?

Through prayer, daily life takes on new meaning. It becomes a classroom of communion. In that classroom we learn the truth about who we are - and who we are becoming - in Jesus.

Through prayer we receive new glasses through which we see the true landscape of life. Through prayer darkness is dispelled and the path of progress is illuminated.

Through prayer we begin to understand why this communion seems so elusive at times; as we struggle with our own disordered appetites, and live in a manner at odds with the beauty and order of the creation within which we dwell only to find a new beginning whenever we confess our sin and return to our first love. Prayer opens us up to Revelation, expands our capacity to comprehend truth and equips us to change.

Through prayer we are drawn by Love into a deepening relationship with Jesus,  which gives us new life as we are converted, transfigured and made new.

Through prayer, heavenly wisdom is planted in the field of our hearts and we experience a deepening communion with God. We become, in the words of the Apostle Peter "partakers of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:4)

Our part is to respond.