The Art of Devotional Prayer

The orthodox Christian writer of Way of the Ascetics advises, “When you pray, you … yourself must be silent; let the prayer speak.” Silent prayer is more than not using words; it encompasses complete stillness, concentration, active listening and, above all, love. Practitioners perfecting the art of devotional prayer in this way tune into prayer emanating from their heart and acknowledge it as the voice of divinity speaking through them.

Becoming silent during prayer is probably one of the most challenging aspects, and this is explored by the author of The Power of the Name. The author draws on four definitions of prayer. The first is from The Paperback Oxford English Dictionary, which defines prayer as a “solemn request to God”. This definition characterizes prayer in terms of spoken words and focuses on its external aspect.

The second definition is taken from an anthology about the art of praying in which a 19th-century bishop exhorts that every prayer “must come from the heart” and that “the principal thing is to stand before God with the mind in the heart, and to go on standing before him unceasingly day and night, until the end of life.” From this perspective, prayer is not about reciting passages from religious scriptures. Rather, it must reflect our innermost feelings and be practiced wordlessly with the tongue of our soul. Nor is prayer an activity undertaken at set times or when one feels like it, but it is a perpetual state of being. To pray is to establish a direct and intimate connection with God, realizing that in every aspect of our existence, we are in God, and he is in us.

Although the second definition of prayer is superior to the first, both emphasize the actions of the individual. Yet when it comes to the true nature of inner prayer, it is the actions of the divine that are of paramount importance. The idea that it is God who initiates prayer in the individual is expressed in the third definition of prayer, which is taken from a passage by a 14th-century Christian monk, Saint Gregory of Sinai, who wrote:

Why speak at length? Prayer is God, who works all things in all men. Prayer is God – it is not something that I initiate but something in which I share; it is not primarily something that I do but something that God is doing in me: in Saint Paul’s phrase, ‘not I, but Christ in me.’

The essence of inner prayer is distilled in Saint John the Baptist’s statement in the Bible (John 3:30), concerning the Messiah, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” In this context, true prayer involves silencing one’s own voice and concentrating on doing God’s work. The fourth definition of prayer takes this a step further and sheds light on the transformative effect of true prayer. Saint Gregory of Sinai theorized that prayer is “the manifestation of baptism.” Here, baptism does not refer to the ceremony symbolizing admission to the Christian church. Rather, it refers to the purification of the soul and an awareness of divinity residing within one’s being. The effect of true prayer, therefore, is to move from a state where one is wholly ignorant and unaware of the divine grace flowing throughout our entire being, to a state of conscious awareness of the presence of the spirit within and all around us.

While the different definitions of prayer help us to perfect the art of devotional prayer, perhaps the essence of true prayer is best captured by the idea of becoming who you already are. In other words, prayer is about uncovering one’s true identity, listening to the voice calling us from the depths of our being, and embracing the spirit within. This is God’s core message to everyone who prays: “You would not seek me unless you had already found me.”