In Luke’s Gospel we are told that Jesus recounted the parable of the Persistent Widow to teach the people “the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary” (Luke 18:1). The word used for necessity means a compulsion, or inner necessity and indicates something that by all means should happen.
Jesus teaches us that we must pray always without becoming weary.
Are we to take this literally? Perhaps it is a literary exaggeration, or a hyperbole?
Yet St. Paul gives a similar exhortation, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18).
Christians throughout the ages have taken this command literally. In early monasticism, Christians retreated from earthly distractions into the desert, and literally tried to pray without ceasing. This may actually be the origin of the Hail Mary and the offices of Liturgy of the Hours.
While a lay person can engage in similar disciplines and devotions, and this spirituality is laudable, it is clearly not practical for lay people in the midst of the world to live as these desert hermits did. Could there be another way to understand this?
In his commentary on Psalm 38, St. Augustine comments on the verse, “Lord, before you is all my desire, and my groaning is not hidden from you.” (Psalm 38:9).
St. Augustine notes,
This very desire is your prayer, and if your desire is continuous, your prayer is continuous too. The apostle meant what he said, Pray without ceasing (1 Thes 5:17). But can we be on our knees all the time, or prostrate ourselves continuously, or be holding up our hands uninterruptedly, that he bids us, Pray without ceasing? If we say that these things constitute prayer, I do not think we can pray without ceasing. But there is another kind of prayer that never ceases, an interior prayer that is desire.
… If you do not want to interrupt your prayer, let your desire be uninterrupted. Your continuous desire is your continuous voice. You will only fall silent if you stop loving. (Expositions of the Psalms 33–50, 9-10).
As St. Augustine notes our interior desire can be a continuous prayer even in the midst of daily life and work. The most important thing in our prayer is our heart. God invites us to share our heart and our desires with him. We can make a habit of lifting up our heart before him, and to ask him to purify our desires according to his will. As St. James reminds us, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). Our desires will be transformed by God's loving presence in our lives.
This does not imply that we do not also pray with words, As St. Augustine notes,
Therefore we pray always, with insistent desire, in that same faith and hope and charity. But, we also pray to God in words at certain fixed hours and times, so that we may urge ourselves on and take note with ourselves how much progress we have made in this desire, and may rouse ourselves more earnestly to increase it. (Letter 130, p 390)
St. Augustine also notes, however, that to pray continually does not imply endless speaking. He notes, “But, to pray at length does not mean, as some think, to pray with much speaking [Matt. 6:7]. Continual longing is not the same as much speaking” (Letter 130, p. 391)
Four Ways God is Present to Us
There are four ways the Church has understood the discipline of learning to live in the presence of God. First we can build an awareness of his loving presence in our lives, secondly we can grow in our understanding of his power, thirdly we can deepen our understanding of the implications of his essence, and finally become more aware of God’s indwelling presence.
Building an Awareness of God’s Loving Presence
The first way to understand God’s presence is by building an awareness of his loving presence in our life. We use this kind of understanding in our modern culture when we say we are being present to another person.
In recent research on couples, we have discovered that partners will often make many small bids for connection with their spouse. They might say, “Oh, what day at work!” They desire their partner to stop and focus on them, and ask about their day. If their spouse turns toward them, puts down their phone, and looks at them and listens to them, then they are truly being present to their spouse.
We might also think of the relationship between parents and children. Perhaps a young child is afraid to visit a certain place in their house alone. They may ask the parent, “Can you go with me?” When the parent accompanies them, they are not afraid to go to this place. Another aspect of this relationship might be the child simply looking for connection. A child might say, “Daddy, watch me, I can do a handstand!” Or perhaps, “Dad, did you see that goal?” The child is looking for a sense of secure connection, and affirmation.
While it is true that our modern culture is suffering an epidemic of loneliness, we are never truly alone, because God is always with us. We can choose to cultivate an awareness of his presence, or we can allow ourselves to be distracted. This is especially true today with so many screens and social media offerings. Unfortunately, as many people have experienced during the pandemic, while sometimes helpful, a virtual presence is not the same as a real person, on a human level.
While God is in some ways like a loving and understanding spouse, or a caring parent, this is merely an analogy. We need to trust that God’s care for us flows from his superabundant love and mercy. He always desires the best for us, and he knows us better than we know ourselves. We need to trust in the promise, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8).
The more we grow in this awareness of God’s watchful presence in our lives, the more it becomes a source of comfort and security. Our response should be to frequently bring to mind God’s presence throughout our day, to seek to please him in what we do, and to talk to him as we go about our daily life. We can freely share all our desires with him, and trust that he will purify our intentions. When we fail, he is quick to forgive us. We can truly be vulnerable with him. We can trust that even in discipline, he desires our ultimate happiness.
Power
When we understand God’s presence in his power we are saying that nothing happens in this world that is outside God’s control. While God does not cause evil things to happen, nothing happens that he does not at least permit. Everything that happens is in some sense from God’s hand. At times we must try to ignore the human instruments that he allows, and realize that even this is in his control. He may allow it so that some other good may come about.
By granting us freedom, he does allow us to choose paths that are not according to his will, and that lead to a false sense of happiness. In his love and mercy God, “…is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
We must learn that at every instance, at every moment of the world, God is guiding things by his providence. Even in the midst of suffering he is present in his power. Suffering is very much part of his plan. In becoming man, Jesus allowed himself to be joined to our sufferings. This means we are not alone, even in our sufferings. As St. Paul reminds us,
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).
Thinking about this, someone might ask, if God is already intimately involved in working out his divine plan, where does prayer come into this? Often we think of prayer in parallel to our human experience. I need to tell God about this, and then tell him what I desire, and finally to try to persuade him.
Does God need us to inform him about these things?
St Augustine notes,
Words, then, are necessary for us so that we may be roused and may take note of what we are asking, but we are not to believe that the Lord has need of them, either to be informed or to be influenced (Letter 130, p. 391–392).
Pray is not a time to inform God or to persuade God. He already knows, and will act according to his divine purpose. When we pray for a favor, and it is granted in our prayer, we have not changed God’s mind. Instead what happens is, we were moved interiorly by God to pray, and we became aware of something he had already chosen to give.
Again St. Augustine remarks,
Consequently, that saying of the Apostle: ‘Let your petitions be made known to God,’ [Phil. 4:6] is not to be taken in the sense that they are actually made known to God, who certainly knew them before they were uttered, but that they are made known to us before God, through our patience... (Letter 130, p. 390).
In effect, God stirs our desires interiorly to seek his will and then to pray for that thing. We call this cooperating with grace. As Isaiah writes, “LORD, you will decree peace for us, for you have accomplished all we have done” (Isaiah 26:12). Prayer teaches us to increase our desire to cooperate with God’s divine plan. Every good we accomplish in this life, is in cooperation with him. The only thing we accomplish on our own is sin.
Someone might think this is too mysterious. Does God then need to reveal his secret desires before we can pray effectively? This is not what St. Augustine suggests,
You have heard how you are to pray; hear now what you are to ask in prayer, since this is the point about which you especially wanted my advice, being deeply moved by what the Apostle said: ‘For we know not what we should pray for as we ought,’ [Rom. 8:26] and you were afraid you might suffer more harm by not praying as you ought than by not praying at all. This can be summed up briefly thus: Pray for happiness; this is something all men wish to possess, for those who live the most wicked and depraved life would never live that way if they did not imagine themselves happy thereby. So, what else ought we to pray for except that which both bad and good desire, but which only the good attain? (Letter 130, p. 383).
Our life of prayer then should teach us to rely more and more upon God, and less and less upon ourselves. In the words of St. John the Baptist, “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30). As we learn to cooperate more and more with God’s plan, we come to accept the truth of Jesus’s words, “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Essence
God is also present by his essence, he is not distant from us. One could get the impression from the previous description of God’s presence that is working from a distance. We see his watchful presence, and his hand guiding all things, and this might give the impression that these activities take place from afar.
By his divine essence God is not only causing us to live, but to exist. We are given life when God shares his divine essence with us. It is impossible to think of this as something distant. God, in his divine essence, is the very foundation of who we are. Because of this everything we do, and every aspect of who we are, shares in his divine essence.
In St. Paul’s missionary preaching to the Athenians at the Areopagus, he says ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ (Acts 17:28). He notes that this saying is even echoed in some ancient Greek poets. It may even be a quotation. These inspired words of Sacred Scripture, remind us of this very truth of God’s essence within us. Whenever anything exists, it cannot be apart from God. God is at the very root of its being.
God is the cause of our existence, and we cannot continue to exist apart from him. He holds us in existence. Yet this is not something precarious, we trust in his loving plan for us. We are reminded in Ephesians,
“…he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will” (Ephesians 1:4–5).
If we wish to relate this truth to our prayer, it would teach us that God is not spread out over all of creation, but knows us individually and personally. He knows us by name. In fact he knows us better than we even know ourselves.
In our human relationships, we might have closer friends who know us better than others, but there is no part of God that is missing from our life. God is never distracted or focused elsewhere. In terms of relationship, we have everything we need from him.
Perhaps fear might enter our heart. We might think, “I’m not that important, why does God care about me?” This is to misunderstand who God is. Unlike us, he is not limited by his attention, or focus, he is always fully present and has revealed his unwavering love for each one of us as individuals. We are each precious to him. He knew our name “before the foundation of the world” and “in love he destined us for adoption.” This should teach us even more about our dependence on God.
His Indwelling
God’s presence by indwelling this the most intimate form of his presence. If it is possible to think of something more personal than what we have already discussed, God’s presence by his indwelling is even more personal. The reason is that when God dwells in us, we then dwell in him. We are not just held in existence by his presence, we live in his presence.
Jesus says, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (John 14:23). We understand this to mean that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will indwell us. Jesus is promising that all three persons of the Holy Trinity will come to make their home in our soul. By his watchful care, his power and essence, God guides and sustains us, but by his indwelling he makes his home in us. Furthermore, the first three ways are available to all of creation, but the indwelling of the Holy Trinity is only available to a Christian in the state of grace.
What this indwelling does is make us friends of God (John 15:15). In taking up residence within our hearts, this does not mean he takes up room within us, pushing us out of the way. He expands our hearts so that we become more, without giving up anything of who we are. We are changed but without being diminished in our individuality. He builds upon and transforms our nature into something new.
As St. Paul tells us, “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). He also notes, “All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Many of the saints and doctors of the Church have especially seen this transformation as taking place in a sometimes intangible but ever growing awareness of God’s loving presence in prayer. This love is not from the senses, but spiritual. It is a divinely given thirst. This is a supernatural presence that cannot be brought about by any particular prayer technique. It is a pure gift. On the other hand it is clearly fostered by our humility, docility and cooperation in a life of prayer generally.
Since the church has taught that there is a universal call to holiness among all the faithful regardless of their state in life, it follows that at least the beginning stages of this awareness of God’s loving presence in prayer, must be available to all Christians. This is God’s transforming presence within us. Learning to enter in to God's love in our prayer in this way, is a long but joyful journey.
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Augustine of Hippo, Letters (83–130), ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. Wilfrid Parsons, vol. 18, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1953)
