To learn to pray, we can be helped by those men and women who did it during their lives: the saints. In a special way, Saint Mary.
Jesus goes up publicly for the first time to Jerusalem. He dedicates himself fully, finally, to the announcement of the kingdom of God through his words and his miracles.
The fame of him, from the prodigy worked at the wedding in Cana, was spreading little by little. It is then that, hidden by the silence and darkness of the night, a well-known Jewish teacher approaches him to talk with him (Jn 3,1). Nicodemus had felt an earthquake within him when he heard and saw Christ.
Many things were going around in his head and he preferred to solve them in the privacy of a face-to-face conversation. Jesus, who knows the sincerity of his heart, quickly tells him: «Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God» (Jn 3,5).
The dialogue continues with what any of us would have wondered: what does that mean? If I know the exact day I was born, even the time, how can you be born twice? Jesus, in reality, was asking Nicodemus not only to seek to understand things but – more importantly – to let God into his life.
Because wanting to be a saint is like being born again, like seeing everything in a new light; In short, being a new person: transforming ourselves, little by little, into Jesus Christ himself, “allowing his life to be manifested in us” [1]. The saints have already traveled the paths of the kingdom of God: they have climbed its mountains, they have rested in its valleys and they have also experienced the slightly darker corners.
That is why they fill us with hope. One way to recognize Christ is precisely through the saints. Their lives can play an important role in the personal journey of every baptized person who wishes to learn to pray.
Mary prays when she is happy…
The women and men who have preceded us are witnesses that vital dialogue with God is really possible in the midst of so many comings and goings that can sometimes lead us to think otherwise. Among them, a fundamental testimony is that of Santa María. She, due to her tender closeness to hers her son Jesus hers in the daily life of a family, had the most lively experience of dialogue with the Father. And, as in every house, in the home of Nazareth there were good moments and more difficult moments; however, in the midst of very different states of mind, the Virgin always prays.
The Life of Mary Teaches Us to Pray at All Times
Pray, for example, when you are happy. We know that, shortly after receiving the announcement from the angel, Mary “hurried up the mountain, to a city of Judah” (Lk 1,39) to visit her cousin Elizabeth.
She had received the news that the family would grow in number with a new nephew, which was worth celebrating; much more if it was an unexpected event, given the age of Isabel and Zacarías.
The description that Saint Luke makes of the meeting between the two cousins is full of emotion, and places us in a scene of blessing and joy» [2] ; emotion to which, somehow, the Holy Spirit joins revealing the physical presence of the Messiah, both to the Baptist and to his mother.
Elizabeth, as soon as Mary had entered her house, praised her with affection, using words that would become a universal prayer and which we echo daily, also delving into that joy: “Blessed are you among women and blessed it is the fruit of your womb!” (Lk 1,42).
The Virgin, for her part, responds with emotion to the enthusiasm of her cousin: «My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior». The Magnificat, the name that tradition has given to this response from our Mother, teaches us what a prayer of praise is that has been soaked in the word of God.
As Benedict XVI points out: «Mary knew the Sacred Scriptures well. Her Magnificat is a tapestry woven from threads from the Old Testament » [3]. When we feel our hearts full of gratitude for a gift we have received, it is time to expand with God in our prayer – perhaps with words from Scripture – acknowledging the great things he has done in our lives. Thanksgiving is a fundamental attitude in Christian prayer, especially in moments of joy.
However, the Virgin also prays in moments of darkness, when pain or lack of meaning are present. In this way, it teaches us another fundamental attitude of Christian prayer, expressed concisely but luminously in the account of the death of Jesus: “His mother and his mother’s sister were by the cross of Jesus” (Jn 19 ,25). Maria, overwhelmed with grief, is simply. She does not intend to save her son nor to resolve the situation.
We don’t see her asking God to account for what she doesn’t understand. She only tries not to miss a single one of the words that Jesus pronounces, with a small voice, from the Cross. For this reason, when she receives a new task, she accepts it without delay: «Woman, here is your son.
She then said to the disciple: “Behold your mother!” »(Jn 19,26-27). María is in the hands of a pain that, for many, is the most terrible that a person can experience: witnessing the death of a child. However, she maintains the lucidity that allows her to accept this new call to welcome John as her son and, with him, us, the men and women of all time.
The Writings and Lives of the Saints Help Us to Cultivate Our Friendship with God, as They Did Too
Painful prayer is first of all being close to one’s own cross, loving the will of God; it is knowing how to say yes to the people and situations that the Lord places at our side. To pray is to see reality, even if it seems particularly dark, starting from the certainty that there is always a gift in it, that God is always behind it. In this way we will be able to welcome people and situations repeating like Mary: “Here I am” (Lk 1,38).
Finally, in the life of the Virgin we discover another state of mind in which she prays, different from that of the darkness of pain. We see Mary, together with her husband José, also praying in a moment of anguish. One day, while returning from their annual pilgrimage to the Temple of Jerusalem, they notice the absence of her twelve-year-old son.
They decide to go back in their search. When they finally find him conversing with the teachers of the law, Maria asks, “Son, why have you done this to us? See how your father and I were looking for you in anguish” (Lk 2:48). We too, many times, can feel anguished when we are assailed by a feeling of insufficiency, non-compliance or being out of place. It may seem to us, then, that the world is wrong: life, vocation, family, work…
We may come to think that the road is not as I expected. The plans and dreams of the past seem naive to us. It is comforting to know that Mary and Joseph went through this crisis and that not even her anguished prayer had a clear and reassuring answer: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that it is necessary for me to be in the things of my Father? But they did not understand what he told them »(Lk 2,49-50).
Praying in those moments of anguish does not ensure that we find quick and easy solutions. So, what to do? Our Lady teaches us the way: to remain faithful to our own life, to return to the normal situation and to rediscover God’s will even when we do not fully understand it.
And also, like Mary, we can keep all these mysterious and sometimes dark events in our hearts, meditating on them , that is, observing them with an attitude of prayer. In this way, little by little we realize that the presence of God returns; we will experience that Jesus grows in us and becomes visible again (cf. Lk 2,51-52).
Biographies that are like our lives
Mary is a unique witness to the closeness to God that we long for, but so are the saints, each one in a personal and specific way. “Each saint is like a ray of light that comes out of the Word of God”, Benedict XVI teaches in a document in which he suggests some teachers: “
Saint Ignatius of Loyola in his search for truth and in spiritual discernment; Saint John Bosco and his passion for the education of the young; Saint John Mary Vianney and his awareness of the greatness of the priesthood as a gift and a task; Saint Pio of Pietrelcina and his being the instrument of divine mercy; Saint Josemaría Escrivá and his preaching on the universal call to holiness; Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, missionary of God’s charity to the least» [4] .
Humanly it is natural to have sympathy for certain ways of being, for people who dedicate themselves to tasks that attract us the most or who speak in a way that reaches our hearts and minds directly. Learning about the life and experiences of a saint, along with reading her writings, are privileged moments to cultivate a true friendship with him or her.
For this reason, if only the extraordinary examples of the life and prayer of the saints are underlined, we run the risk of making their example a little further away and more difficult to follow. «Do you remember Peter, Augustine, Francis? I have never liked those biographies of saints in which, naively, but also lacking in doctrine, they present us with the deeds of these men as if they were confirmed in grace from the womb.
Writes Saint Josemaría, who always insisted on the importance of not idealizing people, not even saints canonized by the Church, as if they had been perfect. “No. True biographies of Christian heroes are like our lives: they fought and won, they fought and lost. And then, contrite, they returned to the fight»[5] .
This realistic approach makes the testimony of the saints much more credible, precisely because they are similar to each one of us: among the saints, says Pope Francis, “it can be our own mother, a grandmother or other close people (cf. 2 Tm 1.5). Perhaps their life was not always perfect, but even in the midst of imperfections and falls they went ahead and pleased the Lord» [6] .
The Priest of Ars, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Teresita of Jesus or Saint Josemaría, Can Be Great Teachers of Prayer
Our perspective on prayer can be more complete when we see it embodied in the lives of people. Familiarity with the saints helps us discover different ways to start and start praying again. It can offer us a new light, for example, knowing that Psalm 91 was a great consolation for Saint Thomas More during the long months he spent in prison: «Under his wings you will find refuge…
You have placed the Most High as your asylum… Because he has joined me, I will free him» [7] . The psalm that comforted a martyr in the desolation of prison, facing the prospect of violent death and the suffering of his loved ones, can also point us to a path of prayer in life’s small and large setbacks.
It amazes to be looked at by God
Familiarity with the saints can help us discover God in everyday things as they themselves did. We can read with admiration what Saint Jean-Marie Vianney, the priest of Ars, discovered that day when he approached one of his parishioners, an illiterate peasant, who spent long periods of time in front of the tabernacle. What do you do? the priest asked. And the good man answered simply: I look at him and he looks at me .
No more was needed. That answer remained as an indelible teaching in the heart of his parish priest. “Contemplative prayer is a look of faith, fixed on Jesus” [8], teaches the Catechism of the Church citing precisely this episode. I look at him and – much more important – he looks at me. God always looks at us but he does it in a particular way when we raise our eyes and return his gaze of love.
A similar experience happened to Saint Josemaría, who was so impressed that he recounted it many times throughout his life. When he was a young priest, during his first pastoral experiences, he used to stay every morning in the confessional, waiting for the penitents.
At a certain moment he heard a banging of cans that disturbed him and, above all, intrigued him. One day, allowing himself to be overcome by curiosity, the young Don Josemaría hid behind the door to see who that mysterious visitor was. What he witnessed was a man who was carrying some jugs of milk and who, from the open door of the church, went to the Tabernacle saying: Lord, here is John, the milkman.. She stood there for a moment and left.
That simple person, without knowing it, offered an example of confident prayer that astonished the priest and led him to repeat, like a constant refrain: «Lord, here is Josemaría, who does not know how to love you like Juan the milkman» [9 ] .
The testimonies of so many saints from different times and environments confirm that it is possible to feel that God is looking at us with affection, wherever we are and just as we are. They say it credibly because they themselves were the first to be amazed at this discovery.
The same asleep as awake
The saints, we said before, also help us when we see them weak and tired: “Yesterday I was not able to pray two Hail Marys in a row,” Saint Josemaría confided one day, at the end of his life. «If you saw how I suffered!; but, as always, even though it was hard for me and I didn’t know how to do it, I kept praying: Lord, help me! I am capable of carrying out even the smallest things: I place myself, as always, in your hands» [10] .
The young Felipe Neri also prayed: «Lord, keep your hands on Felipe today, because, if not, Felipe betrays you» [11] ; and Blessed Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri recognized, in a letter, her lack of sensible consolations while she prayed: «In the bottom is God; although, especially in times of prayer, he almost never feels like it this season.
Not to mention Saint Therese of Lisieux, who pointed out: «Truly, I am far from being a saint, and nothing proves it better than what I have just said. Instead of rejoicing in my dryness, I should attribute it to my lack of fervor and fidelity.
It should devastate me to fall asleep (after seven years) during prayer and thanksgiving. Well then, I don’t feel desolation… I think that little children please their parents the same while asleep as they are awake. I think that, to perform their operations, doctors put their patients to sleep»