God, a Crutch? Reflections on Prayer
God, a Crutch? Reflections on Prayer
Joseph Mattam, SJ
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Once
there was a tax collector; a sinner, according to the Jewish estimate. He
desired to ‘see’ Jesus, the great Rabbi everyone spoke about. As he was short
of stature he had to climb a tree – he would do whatever was needed to see
Jesus. He sees Jesus; Jesus sees him and his life is transformed completely, he
becomes a new man, a just, caring and sharing person. He is saved; Jesus said
(Lk 19.1-10).
The
Religious, especially the women religious in India, spend a minimum of three
hours daily in prayer, with Jesus. Some lay people also have long prayers;
including some of the more recent devotions. This is true also of some of the
seminaries where there are such a lot of vocal prayers. When I was in a
seminary I joined the community once in their morning prayers and I have had
enough. I could never bring myself again to join them. In recent years there is
a flooding of religious literature with new prayers, new devotions, like the
Mercy Chaplet. Everyday seems to bring in a new devotion, a new novena, new set
of prayers.
Through
prayer, do people experience transformation like that of Zacchaeus? Many
religious and lay people doubt it. Many, while they are very faithful to their
prayers, continue to be unforgiving, intolerant, unjust, judgemental and dishonest
in their ways. Does contact with
God/Jesus leave them untouched? Most people spend time in asking God for one or
other favour and they claim that God ‘hears’ their prayers. Our Shrines like Velankani,
centres like Potta, other ‘healing centres’ and ‘intercessory centres’ all
claim that God answers their prayer. We are also aware that saints are made on
the basis of their obtaining from God healing and other favours through their
intercession. God seems to be conditioned by the name and fame of the place, and
the status of the person making the prayer, as God seems to give more favours
in such famous places and not in our ordinary villages or cities, and in
response to the prayers of the ‘saints’, the ‘higher ups’. Since this is what
happens among us, we make God to our image. This is the conviction of many in
the Catholic Church; I do not dispute this, but would like to bring to our
attention a couple of facts and point out that we do not seem to bother about
the bad name we give to God with our theories.
I
suggest that the understanding of such ‘miracles’ as God’s ‘special
intervention’ in the world must keep two facts in mind. First, the most
important things in one’s life are all freely, gratuitously given without
anyone praying for them. Is there anything as precious as one’s own life, one’s
parents, brothers/sisters and all other relatives; nature with all its immense beauty
and bounty: the air we breathe 24 hours of the day, water, grains which produce
more than a hundredfold, the trees, flowers, fruits; realities of our faith:
Jesus, the Spirit, the Church, the sacraments – the list is endless. All such
precious, absolutely necessary and indispensable gifts are freely given, not in
answer to one’s prayers. Hence to understand prayer primarily as a mechanism to
obtain favours from God seems to me is to belittle this most beautiful of
relations to one’s God, Father/Mother.
Secondly,
we must look at these ‘special interventions’ in the context of the world with
its many natural and human-made mighty problems, where God does not seem to intervene.
For example, slavery (millions kept as slaves for centuries), casteism (just
think of the inhuman treatment meted out to the so called ‘untouchables’ for
centuries), colonialism, the near extermination of the indigenous populations
of the Americas (Genocide); the
Holocaust by Hitler, Apartheid; the millions killed by Stalin and Mao; the
Rwanda killings; the perpetuation of abject poverty and misery for millions; incurable
sickness of people who cannot afford the medicine for it, be it AIDS or
Fluorosis (some estimated 30 million in the world); victims of paedophiles; all
types of injustices against God's children, the female infanticide in India (by
now, millions), the never ending wars in the world; thousands of children are
born handicapped; volcanoes, tsunami, earthquakes and other natural calamities
in which many thousands die each year and many more events like these. God does
not seem to intervene in such massively important events involving billions of
God’s innocent children. God did not intervene when God’s innocent Son was
being unjustly murdered. If this be the case, do we so easily presume that God ‘specially
intervenes’ in some practically unimportant events like the sickness of an
individual in some corner of the world?
Some would argue that this shows God’s preference for the simple and the
poor - but the fact is that the really very poor like the “slaves”, the
“untouchables”, girl children in India, and other poor continue to suffer (an
estimated 60.000,000 starve each year) without any special divine intervention
in favour of them; but God seems to intervene in the case of the Religious and
other pious people, who are often not poor. There are, of course, thousands who
complain that God never ‘hears’ them.
We
seem to forget that long time ago, God had put humans in charge of God’s
creation, and we are told, “God rested” (Gen 1. 26-2.3), hence, God rightly
seems to leave the big problems for us to solve. Then would God be intervening to solve small
problems and leave the big ones to us? Are we not making God a little bit too
small? Are not all problems, big and small, a challenge to our creativity,
freedom and love? If ever a problem has been solved, it is because humans
intervened creatively and lovingly.
Some people seem to hold on to a
‘paternalistic’ God (one who, instead of us, does things which we can do for
ourselves). This is to treat God as a crutch. Jesus had shown us that such a
God does not exist; when the people had nothing to eat in the desert he did not
tell them to pray to the Father, but told them “You give them something to eat”
(Mk 6.17). Jesus responded creatively and lovingly as demanded by any situation
and thanked the Father for his action. As examples for God’s providence, Jesus
spoke of the birds and the lilies; both work very hard to feed and protect
themselves; birds work from morning to evening, and fly thousands of miles to
protect themselves from the cold and other inclemency of the weather; every
part of the plants works day and night (Matt 6.25-33). God’s providence is
precisely in how God enables each to be its own provider and protector; parents,
especially the mothers, are the providence of God for the babies.
Hence,
should not prayer be understood in the way the Bible presents it? See Psalm
131: “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high....but
I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother…” or “Be
still, and know that I am God” (Ps 46.10). “You have only to keep still”
(Exod.14.14). I do not deny that the Bible has also other images of prayer. Or
as Tagore says: “Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a
boat, only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this our
pilgrimage to no country and to no end. In that shoreless ocean, at thy
silently listening smile, my songs would swell in melodies free as waves, free
from all bondage of words” (Gitanjali 42). Prayer is ultimately alert,
attentive silence in God’s presence, silence in God, with God. It is the silent
song of a grateful heart reaching out to its benevolent, generous source,
Father/Mother.
In our urge to inform God what God
should be doing and in our greed to get more and more we have forgotten the art
of this “be still”. By having increased the volume of ‘prayers’ we have lost
the art of prayer. The shrines and other centres force us to move away from
‘prayer’ to saying volumes of prayers. Prayer books are good business,
certainly. We have also forgotten what Jesus had told us: “When you pray, do
not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of
their many words. Do not be like them,
for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Mat 5.7-8; 6.32). That
is why God has provided us with everything – how we use, distribute everything
is our responsibility.
The only prayer that Jesus taught,
the “Our Father” is a profession of who we are and a promise to bring about God’s
Kingdom. We confess that God is our loving Father/Mother; hence our relation to
God should be one of loving obedience, not of greed and fear. We confess that we
are all brothers and sisters; hence we owe unconditional love towards one
another, and accept that the earth belongs to all; hence we commit ourselves to
bring about God’s Kingdom on earth by sharing bread, forgiving one another,
protecting and caring for one another. This prayer is a call to act in such a
way that we glorify God by what we do, and thus bring about God’s Kingdom. “But
seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given
to you as well” (Matt 6.33). Jesus’ words need to be interpreted in the light
of the context: people of his time believed that everything happens because God
makes it happen (“God causes the sun to rise” Matt 6.45); we have to go beyond
this belief and understand Jesus’ words on the basis of his actions.
People
complain that when they are silent in prayer their mind wanders, they get lots
of “distractions”, and hence they cannot pray. When I was a novice more than
half a century ago I was told to discard the distractions, push them out, and
come back to prayer. But what are these ‘distractions’? They are not things
coming from outside taking us away somewhere, but we are just becoming aware of
all the problems that are within us: our wrong attitudes, anger, hurt feelings,
aversions, hatred, attachments, fears, pre-occupations, worries, conflicts, unforgiving
situations and the like. All of them are calling for our attention and action.
If you want to put this in another way, God is inviting us to rectify our
attitudes, come to proper, healthy attitudes. This is what happened to
Zacchaeus. Jesus’ look on him opened his eyes and he saw that he was a cheat,
that he did not care for the poor – and suddenly he changed. Jesus had told us
this long time ago: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and remember
that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of
the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your
gift” (Matt 5. 23-24). We do not seem to pay attention to what Jesus is
inviting us to do each day through our ‘distractions’ when we are silent, and
hence we do not improve, we continue in our old ways. Prayer appears difficult.
Unless we face these ‘distractions’ and act on them, they will not leave us in
peace.
Yet,
Jesus did say, “Ask and you shall receive…, find.., door will be opened to you”
(Lk 11. 9-10). When I was a student of theology, our scripture professor, Fr
Volckaert told us that it means, when you pray, “God gives God self, God opens
self to us, God is found”, and Luke makes it explicit: “How much more will your
Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Lk 11.13). We
believe that God dwells in us, so what Luke seems to say is that when we pray,
we are consciously opening ourselves to the Mystery of God, like a stream
becoming conscious of the fountain whence it springs. What we ‘receive’ in prayer is God, the
source of all power, strength and creativity; and by coming into conscious
contact with the Source we are strengthened and are able to do more than we
ever suspected. The hidden source of power within is touched, hence in prayer
we are coming into conscious communion with God our Father/Mother/Friend – this
is the source of our transformation, like that of Zacchaeus.
Then
are all our prayers of petition useless? No, they express our faith, and our
dependence on God, and our love and good will for others. True love is
effective; it is the greatest power on earth; it brings about what it desires.
God works through our love and concern for one another; all God’s gifts,
beginning with the gift of life, are imparted to us through one another,
through creation. God is always active in and through us. That is why we say
God was at work in Moses, the prophets, Jesus, Gandhiji, Nelson Mandela, Martin
Luther King, Mother Teresa and so many others. God acts in and through God’s
lieutenants, images, sons and daughters on earth.
When we recognise this, we will be led to
thanksgiving. This might lead us to be less greedy and more grateful. Because
of our stress on ‘the special interventions’ of God, we forget to be grateful
for the innumerable and precious gifts that God gives continuously through
nature, through one another.
God
does not seem to want us to use God as a crutch; God wants us to be responsible
for our life, for our world, find solutions for our problems and then thank
God, as Jesus always did. For, ultimately it is the dynamic indwelling presence
of God in us that enables us to be creators of ourselves and of our world, and
thus glorify God. Through prayer one is becoming aware of this indwelling
presence of God, and is led to continual thanksgiving. God is glorified when
God’s children behave in a worthy, responsible and loving manner, and not treat
God as a crutch.
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