Our Prayer Life

for Mark When we were children we played a game, placing our palms together, fingers pointing upward in a familiar gesture for praying, we chanted, "See the church, see the steeple." Then opening our hands and wagging our fingers, we shouted, "Open the door, See all the people! " When the nuns watching over us saw this routine, they reminded us to pray, but they were smiling too. We were assembled in the front six pews, facing the altar and the celebrant, kneeling or standing, as the ritual would have it. We responded to the priest's sacred words with equally sacred words, and miracles happened on cue. But did we really pray in our hearts? How do children learn to pray, body and soul united and fiercely focused on Jesus? Does prayer gradually increase in power and awareness until it permeates every fiber within a child's soul? Until a parent is startled when her daughter says, "Mommy, I'm glad Jesus loves me." Until a father finds his son reading the Bible on a Saturday afternoon, and the two of them talk about EXODUS as if it were part of their family's story. And they feel Moses, Joshua and Deborah watching over them in a community of prayer... And somewhere nearby a man alone is assailed by doubt, his mind clouded, access to his soul blocked. Then he reads in the psalm, "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord, " and he rejoices, because his journey back from doubt to faith is almost over. He recites favorite prayers and they reach the depths of his soul, where Jesus awaits him under the Sign of the Cross. The signs that signal it is time to pray are everywhere, because everywhere is blessed with divine presence. In a recent but eternal Sunday service, the pastor, having already closed the event with a blessing and a mission, stood at the edge of the sanctuary, speaking with a parishioner, when another brushed past them, in a trance of prayer, anxious to kneel. He was summoned by something inside him and someone outside him. He bowed his head until it touched the sacred floor, and he was one with his prayer. A million words of theology could not have explained better what faith is than his prayerful example. He knelt there, a man redeemed and grateful. The children sing, "See the church... See all the people, " and it already their first prayer on the road to redemption.