Anam Cara

Prayer Is Critical Vigilance

Prayer is the liberation of God from our images of God. It is the purest contact with the wildness of the Divine Imagination. Real prayer has a vigilance that is constantly watching and deconstructing the human tendency towards idolatry. Despite our best sincerity, we still long to control and domesticate the Divine. Meister Eckhart says that the closer we come to God, the more it ceases to be God. He says God “entwird,” i.e., God un-becomes. In other words, God is only our name for it. Elsewhere he writes: “Therefore, I pray to God that he may make me free of ‘God,’ for my real being is above God if we take ‘God’ to be the beginning of created things.” Idolatry is the worship of a dead God. It is ironic that every human needs some God on the inner altar of the heart. We cannot live without some deity, whether it is Jesus, the Trinity, Allah, Mohammed, or the Buddha. The deity could also be money, power, greed, addiction, or status. The critical vigilance of real prayer endeavours to ensure that it is the flame of the living God that burns on the altar of our hearts. Such prayer longs for the real warmth of divine belonging. Real prayer helps you to live in the beauty of truth. It is a visitation from outside the frontier of your own limitation. The great Irish poet Sean Ó Riordan says, “Níl aon bhlas ag duine ar a bhlas féin,” i.e., No one can taste his own tasting. Though you are the closest and nearest person in the world to yourself, you cannot taste your own essence. When it comes to truly enfolding yourself, you remain a stranger. Only in the embrace of prayer are you able to unfold and enfold yourself in truth, affection, and tenderness.