Chapter 4
Understanding Prayer as Relationship
Prayer, at its essence, is a personal relationship with God. This insight from Jesuit William Barry has profoundly shaped Martin's spiritual life and forms the core of his approach. While various definitions offer valuable perspectives-prayer as "raising one's mind and heart to God" (St. John Damascene), a "surge of the heart" (St. Therese of Lisieux), or "a close sharing between friends" (St. Teresa of Avila)-understanding prayer as relationship allows us to use what we know about human friendships to nurture our connection with the divine.
Like any meaningful relationship, our connection with God flourishes when we invest time, learn about the other, practice honesty, listen attentively, remain open to change, and appreciate silence. Time spent in prayer helps us become comfortable with God's ways of relating to us, just as we learn a friend's communication patterns over years of connection. Honesty means sharing everything with God, not just what seems "appropriate" for prayer-including anger, sexual feelings, and frustrations. As Margaret Silf describes, some people use rote prayers, others pray deeply but avoid their burning issues, while the most connected bring their whole selves to God without censorship.
Listening to God doesn't typically mean hearing an audible voice (though some, like Mother Teresa, have had such experiences). Most people experience God's communication through emotions, insights, memories, desires, images, words, feelings, and mystical experiences. Our relationship with God naturally involves change-our childhood images of God need to evolve as we mature, moving beyond seeing God as merely parent or problem-solver. As C.S. Lewis notes, our ideas of God must be "shattered time after time" as we grow.
Even silence has its place in our relationship with God. Just as friends can enjoy companionable silence during a long car trip or lovers can walk wordlessly along a beach, we can experience meaningful connection with God without constant conversation. Our modern addiction to digital devices has made silence increasingly rare and uncomfortable, yet silence allows us to hear God's "still, small voice" and lets deeper thoughts rise to the surface of our consciousness.
Chapter 5
The Power of Asking: Petitionary Prayer
Petitionary prayer-asking God for help-has deep roots in both Jewish and Christian traditions despite modern embarrassment about it. From Abraham bargaining to save Sodom to Hannah begging for a child, from the Psalms filled with pleas for divine assistance to Jesus teaching the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily bread"), scripture abounds with examples of people asking God for help.
Martin advises against praying for harm to enemies, noting that while "curse psalms" exist in scripture, these are better understood metaphorically or spiritually. Instead, he suggests praying for anything good we might need, offering his own frequent prayers as examples: wisdom, humility, freedom, perspective, courage, patience, hope, inspiration, success (in ministry, not worldly ambition), and deliverance.
For the mechanics of petitionary prayer, Martin suggests simple approaches like imagining yourself in God's presence and asking for help in your own words. After praying, responses vary from feeling nothing to experiencing relief or a sense of being heard. When prayers are answered, he recommends savoring the moment rather than rushing to the next concern, explicitly thanking God, showing gratitude through acts of kindness, and sharing your joy with friends.
Praying solely for yourself is selfish-others need your prayers too. Martin shares how college helped him realize everyone struggles with problems beneath the surface. Prayer should extend beyond friends and family to include strangers, particularly the marginalized. When moved by stories of suffering, our emotional response may be God working through us.
The question of unanswered prayers remains challenging. Martin examines common explanations: that God sometimes says no (though this contradicts Jesus's "Ask and you shall receive"), that God answers in ways we can't see (which can make God seem like a trickster), and finally, that God's ways remain mysterious-the explanation Martin finds most honest. He concludes by highlighting Jesus as the model pray-er, drawing on Karl Rahner's insight about Jesus's three prayer qualities: "realistic petition" (asking for the cup to be removed), "heavenly confidence" (knowing God hears), and "unconditional submission" (accepting God's will).
Chapter 6
The Value of Traditional Prayers
Rote prayers-pre-written, memorized prayers-often form the foundation of one's prayer life and deserve more respect than they sometimes receive. Martin shares that the Hail Mary is the prayer he's said most often throughout his life, not because his devotion to Mary exceeds his love for Jesus, but because it was taught to him early and has remained with him.
These traditional prayers offer several benefits: they connect us with centuries of believers who have spoken the same words; they provide language when our own fails; they're often concise ("Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner") and poetically beautiful; they challenge us with spiritual truths we might otherwise overlook; and they remind us of our own sinfulness when approaching God with requests.
However, Martin acknowledges their limitations. While repetition makes rote prayers comforting, it can also render them meaningless if we simply mumble words without awareness. He warns against what Jesus called "heaping up empty phrases," noting how he sometimes catches himself racing through the Our Father without attention. To counter this, Martin suggests slowing down, pausing between phrases to let meaning sink in, which can reveal new insights about community, God's presence, reverence, and our role in bringing about God's kingdom.
No single prayer form is perfect or sufficient for our relationship with God, just as marriages require various forms of communication. The key is finding approaches that help us connect authentically with the divine while remaining open to trying different methods as our spiritual needs evolve.
Chapter 7
The Daily Examen: Finding God in Everything
The Examen prayer popularized by St. Ignatius Loyola is "the most helpful prayer for people starting out in the spiritual life." While rooted in ancient practices of examining one's conscience, the Ignatian approach shifts emphasis from focusing solely on sin to recognizing where God is present in daily life. The term has evolved from "examination of conscience" to "examination of consciousness," highlighting George Aschenbrenner's insight that the prayer helps us see "the way God is affecting and moving us deep in our own affective consciousness."
The Examen follows five steps: First, consciously place yourself in God's presence, recognizing that the prayer is a conversation with God, not a solitary review. Second, practice gratitude, which combats our tendency to focus on the negative and problem-solve. Third, review your day from start to finish to notice moments of God's activity, not to pick at sins but to examine your day in the light of God's mercy. Fourth, acknowledge sorrow for failures, distinguishing between healthy guilt ("I did a bad thing") and destructive shame ("I am a bad person"). Finally, look forward and ask for God's grace to help with challenges in the coming day.
This prayer helps us counter our tendency to view life as merely problems to solve. It helps us notice, appreciate, and remember moments of grace that might otherwise be forgotten amid daily troubles. Regular practice helps identify patterns-both positive ones to nurture and negative ones to address. Most importantly, the Examen helps us notice God's presence in retrospect, making it easier to recognize divine presence in the moment.
For those who struggle with the Examen, Martin offers practical advice: If you fall asleep, change the timing or position; if it feels like racing through a boring list, remember it's a conversation with God, not a monologue; if you don't feel emotions during prayer, remember that insights are as valuable as feelings; if life isn't going well, look for moments of grace amid suffering; and if you claim lack of time, consider whether fifteen minutes is really too much to give to something as important as your relationship with God.
Chapter 8
The Fruits of Prayer: What Actually Happens
What actually happens during prayer? This fundamental question concerns many beginners but few spiritual writers address it directly. Martin explores the most common "fruits" of prayer to help both newcomers and experienced practitioners understand this essential aspect of spiritual life.
Emotions are often the most noticeable results of prayer. What makes experiencing emotions in prayer different from daily life is that you're experiencing them with God intentionally, and God may be raising these emotions within you. When joy is brought into prayer, it may intensify as God invites you to see that God shares in or is the source of that joy. With painful emotions, prayer provides a safe space to acknowledge them openly with God who already knows but desires our honesty.
Sometimes emotions that arise during prayer catch us completely unaware. These surprising emotions are one of the prime ways God communicates with us. When such emotions surface, Martin suggests asking: What is evoking this emotion? Is it related to something in my life? Is it telling me something about how I perceive God? What might it mean that this emotion arose now? Often, these emotions connect to hidden feelings about our own experiences.
Insights are another powerful fruit of prayer that can be just as transformative as emotions, though they're often undervalued. These might include new understandings of scripture, answers to difficult questions, or fresh perspectives on God. For people whose personalities are less emotive, insights may be the primary way God communicates with them.
Memories that surface during prayer can serve multiple purposes: they can help us see biblical passages in new ways, assist in healing past wounds, console us during difficult times by reminding us of God's faithfulness, or comfort us by highlighting overlooked signs of love in our lives.
In prayer, our deepest desires can emerge as powerful spiritual indicators. The most common desire arising in prayer is for greater closeness with God-a tangible longing for divine union that Martin identifies as our deepest human desire. Other desires include following Jesus, becoming a better person, emulating holy people, or taking specific actions in the world. These desires often represent divine invitations to participate in God's work of healing and transformation.
Other fruits of prayer include spontaneous images that carry divine consolation and insight; words that aren't physically heard but intuitively perceived in consciousness; feelings of calm, peace, or divine connection; and mystical experiences-intense moments of overwhelming connection with God that aren't reserved only for saints but are available to ordinary believers.
Chapter 9
Discerning God's Voice
How do we know whether what we experience in prayer comes from God or ourselves? Sometimes God's communication feels unmistakable-like being "hit with a baseball bat." Martin shares a personal retreat experience where he asked Jesus, "Who do you say that I am?" After days of silence, an elderly woman unexpectedly whispered in his ear during a reconciliation service, "Know that you are God's beloved son"-a direct answer to his prayer that stunned him.
More often, discernment requires careful attention. St. Ignatius Loyola offers valuable insights into distinguishing God's voice from other influences. He recognized opposing forces at work within us-some from God, others not. For those leading good lives, God's voice acts gently "like a drop of water on a sponge," while the evil spirit creates "gnawing anxiety" like "water on stone." The opposite occurs for those moving away from God-the evil spirit offers gentle encouragement to continue bad behavior, while God's voice disturbs the conscience.
When discerning between God's voice and our own thoughts, we can use several guidelines: The good spirit brings courage, consolation, tranquility and makes doing good easier, while the evil spirit creates despair. Consider if the thought makes sense in context, leads to an increase in love and charity, and aligns with what you know about God from Scripture, tradition, and experience. With practice, you'll recognize God's voice as having a quality that's "clear, warm, and assuring."
Margaret Silf offers three insights to distinguish authentic prayer from mere daydreams: what comes from God will last and bring real change within us; it weaves seamlessly into our personal experiences and memories as "God meets you where you are"; and it draws us closer to God and to one another.
Chapter 10
Prayer Methods for Different Temperaments
Different prayer methods suit different temperaments and spiritual stages. Ignatian contemplation invites us to use our imagination to enter biblical scenes, using all five senses to engage with the narrative. This "composition of place" helps us experience scripture personally rather than abstractly. After composing the scene using your senses, enter the narrative naturally and let the story unfold in your imagination, trusting God's guidance toward what you need to notice.
For those who find Ignatian contemplation too "content heavy," lectio divina ("holy reading") offers an alternative. This ancient practice follows four simple steps: reading (What does the text say?), meditation (What does the text say to me?), prayer (What do I want to say to God on the basis of this text?), and action (What difference can this text make in how I act?).
As we grow spiritually, our prayer often becomes simpler. Centering prayer offers a "content-light" approach rooted in the Christian apophatic tradition that recognizes God as ultimately beyond our comprehension. This practice involves three simple steps: quieting down and moving in faith toward God dwelling within; using a single word like "love" or "mercy" to anchor yourself in God's presence; and gently returning to this prayer word whenever distractions arise.
Nature provides another powerful pathway to prayer. Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si' reveals how Jesus himself enjoyed and contemplated nature, "often stopping to contemplate the beauty sown by his Father." Scientific studies confirm that spending time in natural settings reduces stress and improves physical and mental health, but beyond these physiological benefits lies a deeper spiritual connection-in nature, we encounter something created directly by God, decreasing the distance between us and the divine.
Chapter 11
Support for the Journey: Spiritual Direction and Practice
As your prayer experience deepens, four practices can greatly enhance your spiritual journey: spiritual direction, retreats, faith sharing, and journaling. Though sometimes considered only for the extremely religious, these gifts are meant for all believers and can benefit anyone who prays.
Spiritual direction is a practice where one person seeks help from a more experienced person in noticing God's activity in prayer and daily life. Unlike psychotherapy or pastoral counseling, spiritual direction focuses specifically on the directee's experience of God rather than ideas or theological concepts. A good spiritual director primarily listens and helps the directee notice where God already is, rather than imposing expectations or presuppositions.
Retreats offer dedicated time away from normal activities to focus intentionally on one's relationship with God in prayer. They vary in length and structure, from preached retreats with several lectures on a spiritual theme to directed retreats focusing primarily on the retreatant's private prayer with daily meetings with a spiritual director.
Faith sharing involves a small group of people speaking to one another about their experiences of God in prayer and daily life. While similar to spiritual direction in content, it differs in that it involves sharing with a group rather than an individual, and no one person directs the conversation.
Journaling means writing about prayer experiences or encounters with God. The primary purpose is to record experiences of God to prevent forgetting them-both through natural memory loss and the "evil spirit's" attempts to make us doubt or dismiss meaningful spiritual experiences. By documenting prayer experiences in detail, we create a treasure trove of divine counsel we can revisit during difficult times.
Chapter 12
From Mountain to Valley: Prayer That Transforms
The Transfiguration story serves as a powerful metaphor for transformative prayer experiences. When Jesus took Peter, James and John up a mountain, they witnessed him transfigured-his clothes becoming dazzlingly white and Moses and Elijah appearing beside him. This extraordinary mystical experience revealed Jesus's divine identity to his disciples in a way that left them awestruck.
When we encounter God in prayer, we typically respond in three ways: First with gratitude, as Peter did saying "It is good for us to be here." Second with confusion-"He did not know what to say"-as we struggle to understand what our experiences mean. Third with a desire to stay in that moment, as Peter wanted to build dwellings on the mountain.
But Jesus leads the disciples back down the mountain, showing that spiritual experiences are given not just for personal sanctification but as invitations to action. We must bring our prayer experiences into our daily lives. The question becomes: "Now that you have experienced prayer, what difference will it make in your life?" The answer unfolds over a lifetime and is embodied in how we live.
Prayer isn't merely for personal benefit but should encourage growth and loving action toward others. Just as lectio divina asks "What difference can this text make in how I act?", we should similarly question what difference our prayers will make in our lives. The spiritual journey involves both ascending the mountain to encounter God and descending to bring that encounter into the valley of everyday life, where transformation truly happens.
