The Monthly Note
October 2007
Looking at God through praying
by Fr. Jean-Louis Larochelle, OP
«It’s boring to pray, it’s always the same thing», this is a statement so often heard. When we as those, who express themselves in such a way, what experience they have of prayer, they often answer: « I had turned to God to talk to Him about my difficulties in life, my sufferings, to ask Him to improve my fate. I prayed for a long time, but I did not see any changes». Unfortunately in this case, praying consists of focusing only on oneself, on our personal concerns. A limited vision of prayer. If there is a place for this limited approach in prayer, it is not the only one. If we pray, it is not only to look at oneself. If we pray, it is most of all to learn to look at God.
But how can we learn to look at God? How can we give our prayer outlooks that surpass our own person? How can we give our prayer become an activity that nourishes our faith? One way of doing this is to look at the great historical manifestations of the presence of God in our history. By adopting this way of doing things, we discover how God worked in our favour in the past and how He continues to do so today. God’s kindness unveils itself to us more and more. To achieve this wide and generous gaze on God’s action in history, reciting the ROSARY is the path we should follow. This form of prayer consists in praying the prayer beads by incorporating the meditation of the mysteries that surrounded Christ Jesus’ life and Mary’s, His mother. For example, meditation the Annunciation, the Nativity of Jesus, the Preaching of God’s Kingdom or of the Resurrection, our attention focuses on the great manifestations of God’s love. A movement occurs then: our focus shifts from our personal concerns to what God did and continues doing for us. We look at God.
Through this type of prayer, our believer’s gaze educates itself. Slowly, we discover, with amazement, how God became present in our world. Particularly, we learn how to feed from the intimate presence of Christ Jesus. We discover that our life can have an evangelical creativity that we had not suspected before. The following word of Jesus comes back to us often. « I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty». (Jn 15, 5)
Yes, there are many ways to pray. The most important is the one that teaches us to be amazed before God and give thanks for who He is. This, the recitation of the meditated ROSARY can teach us. This is how we can, at the same time, learn to look at God and adopt the gaze that He has on our world and on us. All of a sudden, praying becomes a deepening of our faith.
Fr. Jean-Louis Larochelle, o.p.
«When you pray, this is what to say: OUR FATHER…» (Lk 11, 2)
