The recent de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture conference “Ever Ancient, Ever New: On Catholic Imagination” at the University of Notre Dame was the biggest conference in the Center’s history. I had the chance to present a paper at the conference about my new book Praying Like Saint Augustine: A Guided Prayer Journal.
What did I say?
I began with a confession. When I sit down to turn my mind and heart to God, almost immediately I am distracted by a swarm of thoughts that have nothing to do with God. When I should be talking and listening to God, instead my mind turns to taxes, politics, or lunch plans. In this, I am not alone. St. Teresa of Ávila imagined distractions as a “madwoman of the house” interrupting attention on God. There is one way of praying, however, that I’ve found minimizes such distractions—namely, praying like St. Augustine.
In the Confessions, St. Augustine says that he writes not to human beings who would laugh at his follies and misdeeds; rather, he writes to the God of Mercy. Like Augustine, Flannery O’Connor prayed to God through writing. In her Prayer Journal, O’Connor wrote, “Dear God . . . I do not mean to deny the traditional prayers I have said all my life; but I have been saying them and not feeling them. My attention is always fugitive. This way I have it every instant. I can feel a warmth of love heating me when I think & write this to You.” Like her, I’ve found that putting pen to paper diminishes distractions in prayer better than anything else I’ve tried.
How does this work?
Quite simply, you write a letter to God the Father (or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit . . .) about whatever you like. And then, you imagine what God writes back to you. Prayer is communication with the divine. Part of prayer is to be receptive to what God says to us. God may not speak to us through a burning bush or an angel, but we can imagine what the God of Love says in reply to us.
In tough times, turning to God in writing can be especially helpful. In one of her letters, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini writes, “Look, O Jesus, how my ship has to struggle against the immense waves of difficulty and dangers. Please, do watch over it, and never let it be submerged. I have a great trust in you. I abandon myself to you; and, in so doing, I feel a deep tranquility descend into my heart.”
The more honest your prayer is, the better your prayer is.
The following three-paragraph letter has been studied psychologically and shown to be beneficial for dealing with negative emotions.
In the first paragraph, begin by addressing the letter to yourself, “Dear [Your Name Here].” Then, describe the difficulties, challenges, and uncertainties you face. To what degree do you feel depressed, disgusted, or despairing? The idea is to describe fully and accurately how anxious, angry, ashamed, or alienated you feel at this time.
After writing about your own negative emotions, in the next paragraph recall that millions of people feel as you feel. You are not alone. The full range of your human emotion right now is also felt by countless others around the globe. Negative emotions can make you feel isolated and alone, which makes things worse. This paragraph reminds you that you are part of a vast throng mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
In the final paragraph, imagine what a wise, holy, experienced, and insightful person would say to you as a way of moving forward. What would Jesus say? What would your favorite saint advise? How could you reframe this situation as a chance to grow in a skill? How could you discover in this difficulty a hidden opportunity to cultivate a virtue? How could this obstacle be an opportunity to strengthen bonds of love? With God’s help, what resurrection could arise from this crucifixion?
Now, when you write in this way, it can be raw. The point is to cultivate complete honesty and candor. God, after all, already knows exactly how you are feeling, but we can domesticate our wild emotions by writing about them. The more honest your prayer is, the better your prayer is.
But complete candor can create a problem. It is one thing to be radically honest with God, but what if someone else comes upon what you have written for God’s eyes only?
If you want to ensure privacy in writing to God, you can destroy what you have written immediately after you’ve written it. Burn it, flush it, shred it. Emailing the Almighty may seem like a good idea, but email can be hacked. So, if confidentiality is a concern, it might be better to write a letter to God with paper and pen. In any case, great fruits can arise when you begin praying like St. Augustine.