The Mountain Journey of Prayer

The following is from a recent presentation given to a local youth group on Prayer & Friendship with God.

Mt Princeton, Elv. 14,197

It’s evident within the life of the Church that prayer has been around for quite some time now. It’s not a new thing, nor is it perfected in any particular way. Since the beginning, it has involved connection, intimacy and unity with God. Take a look at some of the prayers from Old Testament figures like Moses, who cried out to God on behalf of the people he was leading out of slavery. Or David, who desperately asked God for help in the Psalms. In these prayers, emotion and affectivity is portrayed. Sorrow, intimacy and longing is what many of these figures went through and for them, that was a prayer. Now the Church has many different types and expressions of prayer that can help one grow in grace and relationship with God and every one of them is a great thing! Prayers of Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving or Service (ACTS). There’s blessing prayers, petition prayers, intercessory prayers, the list goes on and on…Religious orders have different expressions of prayer that fall under their charisms. Vocal, meditative and contemplative are the most common. What I’m getting at is that prayer is not a walk in the park. It involves work and it involves presence. It doesn’t matter which type or expression fits you best, if its done without any intention or whole-heartedness then we are preventing our prayer from being the fullest expression that it was meant to be. 

So what should happen in prayer? What’s necessary?

I remember one Monday morning one of the brothers came up to me. He was tired, looked exhausted, and as he was looking around for something to eat for breakfast, he turns to me in his thick Ethiopian accent and says, “You know, Monday is like climbing mountain” There’s truth to that, and I think the same can be said about the prayer life. Similar to climbing a mountain, It involves work and sweat. We have baggage, things that should be thrown out along the way. We experience doubts and fears, even temptations to turn around. But in the midst of it all we are being led to a peaceful, serene and breathtaking place where we are able experience the sublime presence of God: the Summit

What I’ve noticed throughout my personal experience of prayer is that it really involves four components. Without these four things, my prayer life is nothing. Think of climbing that Monday-mountain.

Window Rock, AZ

Longing

Our prayer life should involve a type of longing. We should desire a unity with God with all our hearts. We should long to see God face to face on this mountain journey (Deut 5:4). The psalms use the word ‘longing’ as something necessary or vital for us, like a thirst that needs to be quenched; the deer that longs for running water in Psalm 42. By longing to experience God we also make it clear that we want to experience what will give our souls true fulfillment and completion. This is only found in God and the longing for that encounter is the start of every prayer. If we aren’t longing for God in prayer, it can be very easy to dismiss ourselves. At that point prayer becomes a ritual where we get in, do what’s necessary and get out. We go through the motions, say what needs to be said and leave. It’s true that God can also work through that, but part of longing for God in prayer is also recognizing that God longs to be with us.

Ascent

Br Joe and I hiking through Kenosa Pass, Co in the Fall of 2017

By ascent, I mean a movement of the heart and mind. There’s an emotional investment involved and it’s more than words. In fact, St. Therese of Lisieux writes that for her, prayer is a “surge of the heart”. The Catechism says that prayer should be a “rising of one’s mind and heart to God” (2559). Even our very own Capuchin Constitutions describes prayer as the “breathing of love stirred into life by the Holy Spirit through whom the inner man begins to listen to the voice of God speaking to his heart.” (Capuchin Constitutions 45.1) Our prayer life needs to be an ascent toward Christ. This part of the mountain journey involves time and perseverance through pain, struggle, weakness and doubt. In order for us to make that ascent in prayer, it requires constant care, effort, faithfulness, dedication and strength. Remember, you’re climbing a mountain! it’s not going to be easy. It involves the work that St. Paul describes as praying unceasingly (1 Thes 5:16). During this ascent, we begin to realize our flaws, our imperfections, distractions become apparent, we struggle, and because of our fears and doubts we are tempted to turn around and head back. We want to check out of prayer completely. The crisis is that in the suffering and pain that we experience, God appears not in anyway present to us, we lose sight of his love, his faithfulness and we stop praying. The solution is perseverance, constant use of the sacraments, patience in prayer, time in prayer and again, remembering our longing to experience God. This leads to the third.

Br. Alex and I at the Gore Range Overlook just outside
of Estes Park, Co

Honesty

It’s important to pray with honesty. Be honest with God in your prayer and be honest with yourself. Take a look at your fears, the things that bring you shame or doubt and present that to God in your prayer. Take it to Jesus. Take it to the Cross. Honesty in prayer is about recognizing your own brokenness, admitting to it and allowing God the time to transform it. The beauty is that God knows everything that is on our hearts, He knows us through and through. But just like a father’s love, He gives us the opportunity to come to him on our own. An honest prayer, is being able to own up to our imperfections with humility. Sometimes that means admitting to ourselves that we need the help of God each and everyday. God wants us to be able to turn to him in our every need. He wants to enter into those voids and heal everything that keeps us from a prayerful relationship with him. At this point in the journey, it would be easy to give in to the voices that remind us of our brokenness. Those voices tell us that because of our imperfections and flaws, we will never be accepted nor can we ever be loved. We become dissatisfied with ourselves and we let that determine our worth. But that’s not true! God is a God of mercy who seeks to transform every one of those imperfections that we see in ourselves. All we need is to be honest, be humble and let God in on those sufferings in prayer. Honesty in prayer is where we find our identity in Christ. That discovery comes by allowing God to shed light on our lives, and admitting to the pain in our lives.

Presence

Presence in prayer is about allow God the chance to reveal himself. It is being completely immersed in the workings of God in the now. I like to compare this part of the journey with the experience of finally reaching the summit of the mountain. In that moment, you feel victorious, confident, a sense of freedom and invigorating peace. God asks us to remain there and completely surrender our distractions. It’s there that we unpack, we encounter, and experience God by simply recognizing God in our stillness (Ps 46:10). God asks that we be present to him in prayer, that we recognize his presence in our lives and whole-heartedly allow him to reveal himself to us. During the transfiguration, after Peter, James and John had experienced the glory and dazzling brightness of God, they were completely moved by the experience that they didn’t want to leave (Lk 9:28-34). In our prayer life, we should have the heart of Peter; totally moved by the presence of God that we desperately want to prepare a tent for Him within our hearts, begging him to spend the night. Recognize God’s presence in your life, and prepare a place for him to remain. God wants to reveal himself to you, he wants to speak to you. By being present in prayer, we are surrendering to the workings of the spirit and the life of grace. This takes patience, endurance, and total trust in God’s divine plan. Essentially, remaining in the presence of God in prayer is about awareness, recognition and seeing. It is recognizing with the heart, that the spirit of God is alive and active in this moment, and in this place.

Basically, what I’ve come to understand about my own prayer life is that it requires a certain type of longing; a longing for peace, maybe answers, a longing to be always united with God. It also involves an ascent of the heart, mind and soul; like incense rising up, it needs to be a movement that perseveres through any doubts or discouragements, it needs persistence. Thirdly, prayer should be about honesty with myself, coming to terms with any imperfections; an element of affective prayer that can help unveil our identity in Christ. Lastly, prayer demands a whole-hearted presence, one that involves surrender and seeks an encounter with God by reflecting on the ways he is present in the now. Try these out next time you're in prayer. 

+Br. Vince Mary

To the Heights: Responding in Prayer

Mt. Evans Chicago Lakes Trail near Denver, Co

There are so many ways that God reveals himself to us in our daily lives, it can be through the people we meet and see, the events in our lives and my favorite, through creation and the beauty we perceive. God in His infinite love for us, overflows with love for us, thus, using the simplest things (or not so simple) God radiates and reveals himself through the transcendental beauty and the created world...But what is this all for? 

Why does God reveal His love through those we meet, or those we have hard times with, or those sunsets and mountains? Why the "middle-man?"

The simplest answer is that He loves us. The other answer is that without those things, we would never really begin a movement and conversion to know and love God. If God revealed himself directly to us one of two things might happen: 1) We would never comprehend his Being, or his fullness. God is so great that it would be difficult for us to understand who He is and God knows this. Thereby, creating conceivable things that lead and reveal us to him. 2) If God revealed himself there would be no journey, no conversion and no meaning of life. We would have reached our end and our goal in attaining true knowledge and love for God.

With all this in mind, there are two realities that we have to face: 1) We are a broken people, therefore always needing of God's grace, love and mercy, and should always, always rely on His Grace to continuously shape us and lead us in the right direction. and 2) Life is a journey and it always will be until we reach those heights of Heaven in the end of times. This means that life will always have those ups and downs, there will be death, trial and temptation. What good is a conversion if these are not present? 

On Route to Pikes Peak Summit 

Mt Evans near Denver, CO

Brendan and I on route to Pikes Peak Summit
in Colorado Springs, Co 

All of that comes from knowing that God reveals Himself and His love through the beauty of the created world. So is that it? Are we supposed to just admit to ourselves that we are broken therefore need grace and then live the life roller-coaster through the good times, the bad and strive for conversion?...

I think there's more to it then that. By this love God reveals to us, Sure we should realize that we need God's help, and we should set on that journey to conversion, but with that, we should respond to that love of God in prayer. That is what will take us to the heights of the spiritual mountain. Saint Paul invites us, Jesus invites us, to respond to God's love in prayer, being fervent and zealous in our prayer life.

 "Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thess 5:16

My Postulant brothers and I at the Incline Summit
near Colorado Springs, Co

With the love and beauty of God being revealed by beauty and creation itself, I have taken to heart the words of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, "The higher we go, the better we shall hear the voice of Christ." and for me personally, I think he means this in both physical and spiritual senses. Physically, hiking and climbing mountains to see the beauty and love being revealed by God. This alone allows us to be a little more attentive and responsive to God than down at the bottom. Spiritually, if we are in prayer and in consolation, that is the joy of the heart while being in tune with and receiving God's graces willingly, we are in a sense "on a mountain." It's on that mountain that Bl. Pier Giorgio says, we will hear the voice of God. 

The importance is that we are listening, we are attentive, we are virtuous, and we are transmitting that love that is being transmitted to us by God. 

Pilgrimage: Santuario de Chimayo

This past weekend my brothers and I went on an official pilgrimage to sort of start the year. We would walk to the Shrine of Chimayo from Espanola, a town about 9 miles west of the "Santuario." We would stay in Pecos with Benedictine monks, praying with them and eating with them, there we would sleep. During the day we would either go up to the mountain and pray, hike around the monastery, rest or fish. It was a very quiet weekend for me and that is what stood out on the pilgrimmage weekend.
The invitation for me, was to return back to the silence not only in my actions but also in my prayer. Throughout the weekend we were praying, contemplating while at the same time still being open to the silence and the peace that is expressed through creation. The beauty of God is displayed in his creation and it was powerful for me to meditate on that.

Silence - the silence is required to cultivate a fruitful prayer, because if you are quiet then you are naturally listening. Listening to the silence means abandoning the noise of our lives. Read Psalm 46 and learn to be still in action.

Prayer - a conversation with God that requires interaction, participation and silence. It is more then just talking to God it is conversing with Him. He is listening to us, so we should listen to Him through the quiet and the silence.

Patience - Contrary to impulsiveness, it is the virtue of waiting, being still while at the same time trusting in God's plan. Saint Paul lists patience as one of the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22.

These three have been the most obvious in my pilgrimage this weekend. It has been an invitation to pray in the silence and with that, I learned how effective and fruitful a prayer can be when it is nurtured by the quiet. There's a listening that is involved when we pray, because prayer is not just a way in which we talk to God, but rather it's a conversation. I learned that in the Silence is where prayer is formed. It's where patience is formed and so for me it was nice to be able to return back to that.

Beauty Draws

Once again I have been humbled by the beauty that God places before me. The views, all the sights, the colors, it's amazing. I always find myself looking up just observing what has been placed before us so that we can witness the beauty that God not only has created but  is made up of as well. He is truly beautiful and life expresses that every minute that we are alive. Every breath is almost a exclamation of praise and thanks, just for  having the eyes to see an the hands to touch.

Now, I think of doubting Thomas in the gospels an how we can relate. Sometimes we might not feel Christ's presence within us. We might see him or feel him, but his beauty will always be like water to our soul. We are drawn to him through beauty he creates. Since God is sheer beauty, we are drawn, we thirst and we want to know more. All this through the beauty that he places before us!

Beautiful Colorado

It was great to get away from everything that consumes you for once. My family and went to Colorado for our vacation to stay with some family. It was great, We had a lot of fun, laughs and great food. I'm just going to go ahead and make Colorado my official favorite state. Even though I haven't see the others, so far this ones my favorite. Just for a couple reasons, it's always raining, it's beautiful, and God surrounds. Through the mountains, the blue skies, the landscaping, it's amazing to witness and be inside or in the midst of all of it. One of the days, we decided to take a hiking trip up a mountain. It took a couple of hours to get to the top, look around and come back down. But it was exhausting, and pretty tiring for us, especially the little ones. I tried to maintain myself and not lost my breathe or sit down. I wanted to get to the top of the mountain so I can see everything that is around the one that I was on. We took breaks, took pictures, and stood up on rock faces. Even though we were tired, we kept moving, and everytime we had the chance, we would climb up the nearest rock face look out and see a world that is vast, and full of unknown colors. It's beautiful to see and give thanks to God for creating the world he did for us. It's amazing and full of wonders that God wants to reveal to us every single day.

Verso L'alto (Toward the top)

In the bible, there are stories of Jesus climbing to the top of mountains with his disciples so they can pray. Usually, it took them most of the day to climb up to the top, and then back down again after they had prayed. In Lawton, OK are some of the oldest range of mountains in the whole United States. The mountains have a similar region to those in Jerusalem, because of this, there is a nearby replica of the holy land, called the "Holy City" which is man made city depicting Jerusalem. So, yesterday I had the chance to climb up these mountains to experience a little bit of what it was like for Jesus and his disciples at the time. These mountains have huge rock faces that we had to climb up and over, sometimes under caves, or through brush, even jumping from one rock to another with a 30-50 foot drop beneath you. We were on our hands and knees pulling ourselves up, jumping from one rock to the next, even up and over rock walls. As my friends and I were climbing, the air started to get thinner, and by the time we knew it we were sucking wind and out of breathe. The only thing that kept us moving was because one, the adventure and excitement, and two, well, as Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati once said, "The higher we go, the better we shall hear the voice of Christ." So as I was climbing I tried to imagine Jesus in front of me leading me to the top. I tried to picture him climbing these huge rock faces, using all-fours and then turning around to help up his disciples if they had lost their footing. The whole time we were climbing, we had to use tactful skills of balance, hand-eye coordination, strength, and then jump. When we got to the top, I remember looking out for miles and seeing nothing but the region of rocks, nearby waters, and even more mountains! It was breathtaking, and exciting to see and realize once again that God created this. The thought of being on top of a mountain, made me feel the presence of God there with us. It was amazing. The three of us sat there on top of the mountain looking out, we prayed a rosary there in honor of God and all that he had done for us. For Blessed Pier Giorgio for being our inspiration and finally the Virgin Mary for being our great model of love, compassion and obedience.