Vocation Director: "How do you pray?" Inquirer: "I am not sure I know how to answer that question."
By Patrick Fairbanks, SJ Vocation Director, Chicago-Detroit Province
I was a bit stunned when the young man came back with no way to respond to my question about prayer. In my years of interviewing men who want to join the Jesuits, I will say that I have heard lots of different answers to questions like: Why do you want to be a priest? What do you like about the Jesuits? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? But to have my question about prayer fall on (fresh) deaf ears was both disappointing and inviting.
Most people do not ordinarily talk about prayer or describe their experience of prayer to others. It’s usually a private matter and it often takes men by surprise when I ask about it. So, I would like to raise the awareness of those in discernment by posing two ways to talk about prayer:
1) What do YOU do in order to find God? 2) What does GOD do in order to find you?
What YOU do?
Jesuits are fond of claiming the phrase “finding God in all things” as a method or style of Ignatian Spirituality. In truth, anyone who prays tries to “find” God. (Fr. James Martin, SJ, in his book, “How Can I Find God” has collected ways that many famous believers have found God in prayer: Sr. Helen Prejean, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Huston Smith, Mimi Kennedy, Mary Higgins Clark, Hon. Paul Simon, etc.) Some men tell me they enjoy using the rosary, the daily Examen, the Liturgy of the Hours, or a contemplation of the Gospel reading for a given day. A man illustrating his pathway to God helps a vocation director see exactly what steps he is taking in that search for intimacy with God. It speaks of his desire and discipline (discipleship). For example, many men under the age of 30 frequently talk about Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. They indeed narrate a story of discovering Jesus in this most meditative tradition and how this form of worship offers the man peace and clarity. Some say they attend Eucharistic Adoration weekly. As well, Loyola University Chicago offers a weekly Taize service which allows students to find that meditative quiet space through music and rhythm. To speak of prayer in terms of days and weeks describes a metric or frequency that can indicate one is drawing closer to or further away from God. That is, the man who admits he attends Mass once a month is different from the man who responds, “I attend daily Mass.” In a similar way, one who can’t find time to pray has a hard time talking about what forms of prayer he prefers and how often he uses them. The details of what YOU do in prayer are helpful to your vocation director.
What GOD does?
The second way of talking about prayer is less factual and more subtle. It attempts to describe how God has found YOU during your daily life. You might tell your spiritual director ways that you had been surprised by God’s grace in your experience. You might talk about God breaking into your life with graces you didn’t expect. Ignatius Loyola, in his “Spiritual Exercises”, spoke about “consolation without previous cause” as a way to discern if this or that peace in the soul comes from God or from the man himself. What God does in your life, to call you to Himself, qualifies as prayer! For example, while doing his daily run, one man reports that he experiences God deeply in the movements of his muscles, the pace of his run, and the steady breathing of his lungs. Here is God finding the man where his passions live. Another man talks about hearing music “for the first time” as God has touched him through the lyrics or the adagio. If we agree that you desire to “find God in all things,” it is a priori that God desires to “find YOU in all things.” A vocation is attuned to hear that divine pursuit of your soul in the various ways God chooses to find you and call you.
A Jesuit always talks about his prayer. Even if he is not praying! So if you are considering a religious vocation, you do well to first pray, then to reflect on your prayer when it is finished, and finally to talk about your prayer with others. Through our experience of prayer we find our way to God, Who desires always to find His way to us.