If it has happened to you, you will quickly identify the symptoms. A reflection of the author of spirituality Claudio de Castro
«Watch and pray, so that you do not fall into temptation; that the spirit is ready,
but the flesh is weak.”(Matthew 26, 41)
It has happened to me again, I have concentrated so much on writing my books and these articles for Aleteia that I somehow neglected the prayer and everything has started to go wrong. I was beginning to lose my taste for many spiritual things and the answers I expected from God had not come.
The presence of God in our lives is a mystery that I often reflect on. The Holy Scriptures, to which I turn lately, assure us that: “in God we live, we move and exist« (Acts 17, 28) This means that He is always aware of us, knows us well, listens to our prayers. But we forget it and move away from God, the source of all good. And things start to go from bad to worse.
It is not common for me. The good Lord, my God, our God, is usually a great spoiler and I felt that something was telling me and I wasn’t listening.
Some time ago I had read these words that stuck in my heart and warn me when I work too much and begin to move away from God. “Sometimes we forget Jesus to do the things of Jesus.” I immediately understood. I had to pray.
If you neglect your prayer you lose your closeness to God and that is terrible, frightening.
I took some time to resume my daily prayer. I went back to visit Jesus in the Tabernacle and to pray the Rosary in the interior patio of my house. And everything went back to being as before, normalcy returned, the loving presence of God, serenity, that inner peace that you know is not of this world.
I usually tell you in my writings this phrase that I once heard from a priest: “Without prayer we are lost.” It is essential for our spiritual health and our closeness to God to “always pray without giving up”, as Jesus asked us.
The devil knows that if you don’t pray you can easily fall into his multiple temptations of the flesh, evil desires, pornography, vices, theft, pride, greed; so he does everything he can to discourage you from praying.
What is prayer?
Have you ever wondered why it is so important to pray and strengthen our souls with the sacraments? Let us first see what prayer is. You must know and be aware of it to understand your urgent need.
Saint Therese of the Child Jesus said in her marvelous work Story of a Soul: «For me, prayer is an impulse of the heart, a simple gaze thrown towards heaven, a cry of recognition and love both from within the trial and in joy».
And what does the Catechism of the Catholic Church tell us?
2559 «Prayer is the elevation of the soul to God or the request to God of convenient goods» (Saint John Damascene) From where do we speak when we pray? From the height of our pride and our own will, or from “the deepest” (Salt 130, 1) from a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself is exalted (cf. lc 18, 9-14)».
The modesty is the base of the sentence. “We don’t know how to ask properly” (rm 8, 26). Humility is a necessary disposition to freely receive the gift of prayer: man is a beggar of God (St. Augustine).
Pope Francis in one of his tweets (Oct 30, 2021) has wisely said: “When we pray, we never do it alone: even if we don’t think about it, we are immersed in a majestic river of invocations that precedes us and continues after us.”
How is your daily prayer going? Maybe you neglected to pray or you don’t pray as you should or you think it’s not worth it because God doesn’t listen to you.
Take the test return to fervent prayer, the one that allows you to experience the presence of God and then you tell me. I have seen how prayer helps us move forward and find answers to many questions.
Tell me how your prayer went. I’ll give you my personal email cv2decastro@hotmail.com
God bless you!