This letter, written anonymously, was published in pamphlet form by the Catholic Truth Society of London.
My dear Michael,
You honor your godfather by putting your difficulties about prayer to one who is not a trained theologian. But you say in your letter that you would rather seek the advice and help of a layman than that of one of the priests; by this you hint that you might get a “professional answer.” I know you would probably get a far better answer than I can give you. Perhaps you feel that you will get a layman’s point of view, but there cannot be any “point of view” about prayer. Anyhow, I will do my best to help you.
To remind you of what your questions were I will quote from your letter. You say: “I am awfully tempted to give up saying my prayers because I can’t see the use of asking God for things when he already knows what I am going to ask for and because I never seem to get any answers to my prayers.”
Well! Michael, I don’t think you have understood the reason why you and I are bound to pray—prayer is not a kind of best suit which we keep for Sundays and days of obligation. Now, as I have often said in our talks, either the Catholic faith and practice is completely true or completely bogus, a kind of pleasant Arabian Night entertainment which we can believe in or not as we like. You and I know that the Catholic Church was founded by our divine Lord, that he is with her until the end of the world, that what the Church teaches is God’s teaching, and what the Church tells us to practice are God’s rules and regulations. Yes, indeed the Catholic Church is God’s Church, and we are very lucky to be members of the Church.
The next point: I think you, as do many Catholics, do not realize fully what religion means. I need not remind you, as a good Latin scholar, that the Latin word “religo” means “to bind well and surely.” That is exactly what religion should do for us, bind well and surely our immortal souls to God. The sole purposes of hearing Mass, going to Communion, attending to our spiritual duties are to acknowledge our entire dependence upon God—that is, to worship him—and to help us to bind ourselves to God. It is as simple as that!
The next point: We are entirely dependent upon God; of ourselves, depending on ourselves, we are like motorboats in a harbor, drifting this way and that because we have no petrol to run the engine (petrol is divine grace) and no rudder to steer with (rudder is God’s guidance and Providence). Now mark, learn, and inwardly digest this next point: Prayer is the method of our keeping in close touch with God; prayer is raising the heart and the mind to God; prayer is a rope which binds us to God; prayer is an obligation which we are bound to carry out if we are to save our souls. One simply cannot attempt to live a spiritual life unless one is constant and regular in one’s prayers. Divine grace flows into our souls by the sacraments and by hearing Mass, which is the highest and best form of prayer. All this, Michael, is true. If one gives up prayer, the motorboat goes on the rocks, gets smashed up, and sinks to the bottom of the harbor—prayer gives us grace (petrol)—prayer gives us divine guidance (rudder).
Michael, you are growing up—you will be sixteen next birthday. I wonder if one of your difficulties about prayer is because your attitude towards life is that of a boy of sixteen and your attitude towards prayer is that of a child! As do so many others, you seem to think that prayer is only asking, when prayer is really giving. Of course you are perfectly right to ask for this, that, and the other, even for a fine day for the sports or to pass an examination, but if you are thinking of prayer merely as a means to get something out of God, you are like a boy putting pennies into a slot machine, hoping to get out a box of matches or a bar of chocolate. You put in your penny, pull out the drawer and to your annoyance you get a pencil. The pencil, by the way, may be far more useful to you than the box of matches!
Also so many people, Catholics as well as others who believe in prayer, are so inclined to look upon prayer and devotions as a kind of magic or, to change the idea, a bottle of medicine, to be taken twice a day, morning and evening. They take the medicine regularly. At first it seems to do them so much good, they feel all the better for it. Then gradually, or even suddenly, the medicine apparently (I say, apparently) loses its power, the magic does not work. They expected prayer to, so to speak, force God’s hand, as a child hopes that he will make his parents do what he wants if he goes on badgering long enough. Their prayers do seem to be unanswered. Anyhow, they have not got what they asked for, or they think that God is refusing to hear their requests. They say their prayers less frequently, or they give up saying them altogether, just as a peevish child goes out of the room slamming the door because he feels his parents are mean and do not love him. That attitude toward prayer is childish and very much like that of a savage who believes in magic: The more he bangs his tom-tom the more likely there is to be rain. Now we are told by our Lord that no prayer goes unheard and unanswered, but we must face up to the fact that our prayers may not be answered by God in the way we want; God knows what is best for us, and that is true and not said by priests to get out of the difficulty about this common question about answer to prayers.
I can assure you, Michael, that, when you are as old as I am and you can look back over your life, you will realize how true it is that God knows what is best for us. Again and again have I prayed hard and kept on praying for some particular object, and apparently God refused to grant me what I prayed for. I was very peeved, but now I know God was right. He answered my prayer in quite a different way. That is one of God’s many mysteries. So much of the Catholic faith is mysterious. The existence of God is a mystery although there are many facts to prove the existence of God, but to us mortal men God remains a mystery.
Do remember, Michael, that you and I and the pope are all human beings, with our human nature and all the powers of the body as well as the powers of the soul. We are so accustomed to think about things which we can touch, see, and smell. In fact we all are surrounded by what is called nature; we are subject to the laws of nature. Now, our religion is supernatural, above nature. It is natural to eat, to sleep, to walk, to swim, to talk to our neighbor whom we can see and touch and possibly smell. But to talk to God does not come naturally to us because we can’t see or touch God. Even in the Blessed Sacrament we cannot see or touch God, but we can see and touch the Host in which he is really and truly present, which is itself a very great mystery. We can’t explain why people suffer terrible pain or do such evil things—those are mysteries. To get over this tremendous difficulty about God and the Catholic religion being mysteries, we have to get supernatural help, and that help is faith. Faith means trusting in God and in his Church and believing what God has revealed. If you and I could prove the mysteries of our religion as I can prove a mathematical problem or a scientist can prove the existence of stars, how easy religion would be!
Michael, to save our souls, which means continuing to be bound to God firmly and securely, is no easy task—God does not mean it to be easy. We need all the supernatural help which we can get. We need all the grace we can get.
How can we get this grace, which is the name for God’s help? By prayer. By attending Mass, which is the best kind of prayer. By going to Communion, in which our Lord comes in a particular and very mysterious way into our souls. By going to confession when we feel the supernatural rope which binds our soul to God has become slackened or even broken. If we give up our prayers because we can’t see or feel the results which we want, the rope gets very slack and is inclined to break.
Let us be practical. If I were a gym instructor and not your godfather, and you came to me to help you to train for the sports, I should give you regular exercises to do as well as telling you to eat the right things and go to bed early. Prayers are our regular exercises: If you give up saying your prayers regularly, don’t blame God or the Church if you find yourself getting slacker and slacker and finding all manner of excuses to give up your faith. You and I and the pope need all the supernatural help we can get to keep our souls bound to God.
You say, Michael, in your letter, “I can’t see the use of asking God for things when he already knows what I am going to ask for.” I have left that question unanswered until the end of my letter because I wanted you to see that prayer is a supernatural act and why God’s way of dealing with your prayers seems to be so mysterious.
Now, of course God knew from the beginning of time that you, Michael, would be born, that you would be a Catholic, and that you would pray to him; in fact he knew exactly what you would pray about and how you would respond to his divine help. But God also gave you free will, and he couldn’t compel you to pray. There’s a mystery for you, if you like! God even knew how you would use your free will, but free will you have, and God can’t compel you to be good or bad—you have a free choice.
Man can either choose God or choose evil. Man can deliberately cut the rope which binds his soul to God, cut it with full knowledge of what he is doing and with full consent, and that is mortal sin. Sin slackens the rope, frays it or cuts it. If the rope remains cut and man makes no attempt to get tied up to God again (by confession or a real act of contrition), God can have nothing further to do with this particular man, because God has given this man free will, and this man has chosen to cut the rope. That surely is only fair. If your headmaster gave all the boys prizes whether they had worked hard or been very slack, you would not think much of the headmaster or the school rules. We shall be rewarded by eternity with God only if we work hard and obey the rules, but we are absolutely and completely free to work hard and obey the rules. God in no way compels us, but he helps us if we ask him for help. God wants us to love him—he died for us—he surrounds us with all manner of helping arrangements (sacraments, etc.), but he leaves us free to choose him or ourselves. Breaking, slackening the rope which binds us to God is always done by us because we love ourselves more than God, in other words we are self-loving—selfish. Sin is an act of self-love always. Work that out for yourself!
I will give you some practical tips on prayer, tips which helped me when I began to feel saying prayers was a bore.
1. Don’t make your prayers too long—a few prayers said really thinking of the words which you are saying are far more acceptable to God than reading a lot of prayers while you are thinking of other things. Prayer, being a supernatural act, is very difficult, and the mind wanders.
2. Make a rule—and stick to it whatever you feel; feelings don’t matter one bit—to say prayers night and morning. Of course, say prayers at other times, but without fail say your night and morning prayers.
3. Hear Mass whenever you can manage to go. Mass is the highest and the best form of prayer, because you join with the priest in offering to God the supreme sacrifice of our Lord’s passion and death. This is another of the great mysteries of the Catholic faith.
4. Remember, anything you offer to God is a prayer—making a hundred runs at cricket, or getting goals or tries at football, and any pain you have to suffer, whether the pain is in the body or in the mind, such as a great disappointment.
5. Try to make a daily visit to the Blessed Sacrament. As you genuflect (not a mere bob of the knee), say: “I adore thee, O Jesus.” While you are at school you can practice all these tips; during the holidays to practice them may be more difficult, unless you are close to a Catholic church, but you can pray wherever you are.
Mark my words, Michael, if you give up prayer you will have no petrol in your tank and no rudder, and your motorboat will drift onto the rocks and get smashed up—that is certain.
And that applies to all boys and to all girls and to all men and women. So pray, and your motorboat will run smoothly, and you will have a splendid rudder to guide it with because God will help you.
Your affectionate Godfather