From Act to Essence
Chapter 3 in my series "Deep Prayer"
In my first two chapters of this series, I talked about how a deep prayer life begins with silent contemplation with the Spirit, who then teaches us and consoles us with divine truth, which fills our souls with an abundance of love that overflows into the charity we manifest through our actions. It is at that point that a very special thing occurs in the soul — you start seeing things not with your own eyes, but with spiritual insight.
Brother Lawrence, author of the quaint, but profoundly insightful book Practicing the Presence of God, described this sense in the following way. He wrote, “My most usual method is this simple attention, an affectionate regard for God to whom I find myself often attached with greater sweetness and delight than that of an infant at the mother’s breast. To choose an expression, I would call this state the bosom of God, for the inexpressible sweetness which I taste and experience there. If, at any time, my thoughts wander from it from necessity or infirmity, I am presently recalled by inward emotions so charming and delicious that I cannot find words to describe them. Please reflect on my great wretchedness, of which you are fully informed, rather than on the great favors God does one as unworthy and ungrateful as I am. As for my set hours of prayer, they are simply a continuation of the same exercise.”
The recognition of the presence of God in Brother Lawrence’s life is a gateway to understanding the secret spiritual portal that blurs the lines between heaven and earth. Essentially, the entirety of nature has existence. This existence is dependent on God. Regardless of the obvious differences between these creations, their essence — the thing that makes them completely unique among all other creations — can be traced to a single being, God the Creator, who is being Himself.
This is one of the great epiphanies in the soul who practices deep prayer — to recognize in every created object, every visible and invisible thing, and in every life, the God who has deemed all of this worthy of existing. It is the portal of the spiritual life that allows us to make the petition “thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven” a reality, because we can see the glimpses of heaven in every blade of grass, every meal, every smile, and yes, even in every suffering.
The fullness of this realization cannot be acquired alone. There isn’t a Saint who has ever lived who has reached the heights of prayer without the aid of three specific prayers, which I consider the three keys to opening the earthly portal to the divine vision. These three keys build on the individual’s thoughts, words, and deeds, and weave them into the very fabric of Christ.
The first key is the simplest, but a tremendously powerful tool in developing a deep prayer life. It’s the Rosary, which was previously known as the Marian Psalter. Before the Rosary was given to St. Dominic, and before Our Lady instructed him on how to use it, the faithful would pray the 150 psalms every day. Those who were literate could do this effectively; those who couldn’t read, however, could only listen. For both groups, the practice was time-consuming, so much so that another form of the psalter was adapted in which the faithful would pray the Hail Mary 150 times instead of reading each psalm. They’d fashion 150 beads or rocks onto strings to keep track of their Aves. The 150 was later broken into three sets of 50 — one set for the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. Then, Our Lady appeared to St. Dominic in 1208 and taught him how to unite these 150 Aves into 3 sets of 5 mysteries, which we know today as the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries. Later, in 2002, Pope St. John Paul II would add the Luminous Mysteries to the Rosary, giving us even more ways to unite our thoughts and words to Christ in contemplative prayer.
Pope Paul VI once wrote that the Rosary is “the compendium of the entire Gospel” (Marialis Cultus, 46). When we pray the Rosary and contemplate its mysteries, we dig deeper into our prayer lives with Mary as our guide. She takes our hands and teaches us the ways of perfection — the same ways she taught her Son — with whom we journey through the Gospel as we meditate upon each individual mystery of the Rosary.
Pope St. Paul VI speaks highly of the recitation of the Rosary, as do many — and I mean many — other Saints, but he also asks that this devotion to Our Lady not be the entirety, not the foundation, of a deep prayer life. “This very worthy devotion [the Rosary] should not be propagated in a way that is too one-sided or exclusive. The Rosary is an excellent prayer, but the faithful should feel serenely free in its regard.”
What does Pope St. Paul VI recommend more than the Rosary to establish a deeper prayer life? The answer is the second key to unlocking a deep prayer life: the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office.
The Liturgy of the Hours is a daily, seven-part method of prayer that all priests are required to pray throughout their day. They are Morning Prayer, Mid-Morning Prayer, the Office of Readings, Midday Prayer, Mid-Afternoon Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Night Prayer. Each of those is divided into sub-parts that cover various psalms, readings from Scripture, and writings from the Saints. Each liturgical season, the readings and prayers change to help the reader delve deeper into the mysteries of those seasons.
The thing I love about the Liturgy of the Hours is the fact that at any given hour of the day, priests, religious, and even some lay Catholics from every continent are praying them, perpetually united in spirit while separated only by time zones. It’s a microcosm of heaven on earth to know that souls are constantly praising God for His mercy through the Divine Office.
While it is required of priests, the Liturgy of the Hours is not something that should be taken lightly by the lay Catholic. It takes a lot of time and discipline to tend to the routine. That’s why it is recommended that lay Catholics not adopt each of the seven parts into their busy lives, but just two — Morning and Evening Prayer. This is the requirement for ordained Deacons and for most Third Order religious, and it is a doable option for Catholics in the lay state. Although, if you have a lot of free time and desire, I’m not going to deny you the chance to pray more through this beautiful method.
Pope St. Paul VI reminds us that this ever-present method of praising God in our daily lives is “the high point which family prayer can reach,” precisely because it unites us with our Catholic family all around the world at every hour of the day.
And so, the Rosary and the Divine Office work as perfect companions in unlocking a deeper prayer life. Pope St. Paul VI reiterates this when he wrote, “But there is no doubt that, after the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, the high point which family prayer can reach, the Rosary should be considered as one of the best and most efficacious prayers in common that the Christian family is invited to recite.”
We’ve uncovered the power behind two of the keys that help unlock a deeper prayer life. The third key, however, is the most powerful of all: The Mass.
Padre Pio once said that “every Holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we, ourselves, do not know… It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do so without the Holy Mass.” He’s right, because in the Mass, we experience “the source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324–1327) in the Eucharist.
There are countless biblical, philosophical, and even anthropological tie-ins that we experience during a single Mass — too much to fit into one single chapter — but let’s explore the most important part, the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and see how it provides for us an outpouring of grace that fills in the depths of our prayer life.
The Eucharist, according to Catholic doctrine, is Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity. It is “real food and real drink” (Jn 6:55). It is the biggest leap of faith a Christian can make, for it takes a well-prepared mind and soul to accept that Our Lord not only comes to us through the bread and wine at Mass, but He becomes us, and we Him, in the act of Communion. It is through this most intimate act of receiving that God gives to us the entire universe — every mystical and natural form of existence — in the single wafer that is His essence. Through the reception of this most holy meal, we pay tribute to His ultimate sacrifice and thus nourish our bodies and strengthen our souls to persevere just as He persevered: to suffer with hope, to proclaim the good news with joy, to live a life of heroic virtue.
Pope Paul VI said that the Mass is the most perfect form of prayer. It is communal, wherein the faithful of the Church Militant gather as well as the Church Triumphant. St. John Chrysostom once wrote that “When Mass is being celebrated, the sanctuary is filled with countless angels who adore the Divine Victim immolated on the altar.” And we who are unable to witness these invisible phenomena are at the same time a part of an even more mystical phenomenon that happens within our bodies and souls when we receive the very Christ that the angels cannot, for they are pure spirit, and we, like Christ, are a fusion of body and spirit. So much so that Pope St. Pius X once wrote, “If the angels could envy, they would envy us for Holy Communion.”
So we, who are below the angels in many ways, are given the possibility of rising with them and sharing in an even more intimate relationship with Christ than they — to commune with Him, to share in His body, blood, soul, and divinity.
If the Mass doesn’t deepen your prayer life, then nothing ever will. If you find it boring, repetitive, and regimented, then I’d recommend doing a deep dive into studying this most perfect form of prayer.
In the meantime, continue to deepen your prayer life by using the three keys mentioned in this chapter: the Rosary, the Divine Office, and most importantly, the Holy Mass heard with devotion. In these prayerful practices, you’ll complete the cycle from contemplation to word, from word to deed, from deed to essence. And in my next and final chapter in this book on deep prayer, I’ll teach you how to go from essence to eternity.