What Is Prayer
From a sermon by His Holiness Pope Shenouda, 1968
Prayer in its primitive meaning is a conversation with God. As for its emotional aspect, it is the lifting of the heart to God. For the heart speaks with God through feeling and emotion more than the tongue speaks with words. And perhaps the heart may rise to God without words.
Therefore, the sigh of the heart is prayer. The longing of the heart toward God is prayer, and the emotions of love in the heart toward God are prayer. Prayer is a connection between the human being and God. If this heartfelt connection does not exist, words will be of no benefit.
Prayer is an emotion of love with God. Love drives toward it as a cause, love continues within it constantly, and love is also its result.
For this reason, we find the feelings of this love appearing in the prayers and psalms of David.
He says: “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You. My soul follows close behind You. When shall I come and appear before God? My soul has longed for God, as the thirsty land longs for water; as the deer longs for the streams of water, so my soul longs for You, O God.”
Many people pray and do not feel consolation, because love is not present. Mere words do not comfort. The Lord said about this: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”
If you want to speak with God with emotion, speak with Him with honesty and freedom—without artificiality, and do not try to select particular words. Speak to Him as a friend speaks to his friend, as a beloved speaks to his beloved, and as a son speaks to his father, because prayer is not a formal relationship.
Prayer is humility from God, who accepts that we speak to Him, while He is the Lord of all and the Creator of all, and we are dust and ashes.
He wants you to speak with Him whenever you wish, not whenever He wishes. He waits for you at all times so that you may open your heart to Him and speak with Him—yet you refrain.
Imagine dust and ashes refusing to speak with the unlimited Creator of heaven and earth! The King stands at the door knocking, and the servant inside does not find time to open to the King!
It is pride from the human being when he excuses himself by saying that he has no time for prayer—no time to meet the King of kings and the Lord of lords! Perhaps from God’s love and humility, He gave the human being the opportunity for such boldness.
Prayer is opening the heart to God so that He may enter and purify it. It is a remedy for the problems of the human being who does not depend on a human arm.
It is what the person relies on who does not depend on his own struggle and strength in any of his works, whether public or spiritual—even in his repentance and return to God. In this, Mar Isaac said: “Whoever thinks that he has another door to repentance besides prayer is deceived by demons.”
Prayer is bringing God into every subject and every problem.
Through it you feel that you are not alone in life, but that there is Someone who supports you and stands with you. From here, prayer brings peace and reassurance. Through it a person becomes certain that his problems have been handed over to a trustworthy and powerful hand that manages them as they should be. If our problems are still present, perhaps this is evidence that we have not known how to pray.
When you pray for a problem, either God solves the problem and it ends, or it remains and He gives you peace in your heart concerning it. This also is a kind of solving the problem.
The problem exists, but you are not troubled by it; you do not feel its presence. You no longer feel that it is a problem. This is the effectiveness of prayer.
Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Year Eight (Issue Forty-One) – 14-10-1977
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