A friend forwarded me a post called “Living on a Prayer” by Liel Leibovitz who is a senior writer for Tablet Magazine and a host of the Unorthodox podcast. The thesis of his post is why praying is the only New Year’s resolution anyone needs.
Leibovitz provides an interesting personal perspective about prayer that I think is universal. He writes: “Pray, I thought, is what you did when you gave up hope, when you no longer believed in personal responsibility, when you resigned yourself to luck or fate or whatever force you believed really ran the show. Only the weak prayed, whereas the strong did. Besides, the very idea—talking to God—struck me as so preposterous as to almost defy comprehension. What do you say to a Being that has everything? And if He hast indeed, as Psalm 139 daintily assures us, searched me, and known me, and art acquainted with all my ways, why chat? Even if I could find the words, doesn’t HaShem know them already? Isn’t he the one putting them in my mouth? Why this act of celestial ventriloquism? ”
Another universal truth of our faith, the Catholic faith that answer’s Leibovitz’s question is that God wants to hear from us, as a father would want to hear from his children even though He knows them.
Leibovitz then discusses the times of the day he prays. It’s striking similar to our own. He says “nothing injects your day with meaning quite like beginning it with an intimate conversation with your Creator, giving thanks for another shot at trying and failing at life, but failing a little bit better. Nothing breaks up the workday like replacing that early afternoon shot of espresso with mincha, the midday prayer, checking in with the Boss up above for a lovely little boost. And nothing caps the evening like a quick, final check-in, asking God for good counsel, protection, and all the mercy we could possibly need.”
Kind of sounds like our morning prayer of thanksgiving or what Saint JoseMaria called the “Heroic Minute”, the noon Angelus and evening Examen.
Lastly, Mr. Leibovitz suggest that there is a longing inside people, a constant call that comes in waves of ebb and flow; pleas, desires, requests, words of gratitude. Prayer, in other words, isn’t some awkward practice, or a stricture, or a tradition, or a pastime: It’s the very essence of human nature.
In short, not praying runs contrary to our human nature. It’s why we may feel off, or isolated and when we do it shouldn’t be asking “Papa in the heavens” for magic but instead is taking a deep look inside first understanding precisely what must be corrected with us, and realizing that while God is there as our Father, most of the work has to be done by us. Our heart is always yearning for God as per its design. Prayer is the answer to that yearning.
Full article here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/living-on-a-prayer-new-years-resolution
