Dear Theophilus, 

It is a fine thing to discuss spiritual matters and topics which touch on spirituality but it is a totally different matter from practising spirituality. I think that the time has come, Theophilus, to look at this question in some depth. We have laid what we may call the theoretical basis for the practical work that is necessary.

At the heart of the spiritual life is prayer but even this seeming simple concept has different interpretations. Is charitable work done on behalf of the needy, prayer? Some would say yes while others would say that this represents good works and only complements prayer. I will be very simple in our discussions: prayer is the turning of our attention to God to the exclusion of everything else at that moment. Notice, that I say turning our attention and this attention has two principal forms: we either use words to address God or we use silence to permit God to address us. But more about this a little later.

What is fundamental to prayer is that we believe that there is a God with whom we can commune. We have to be convinced that God exists and that God has personal characteristics which call on us to interact with Him. This is why we have gone through all those questions that we dealt with previously - as a preparation for our direct confrontation with God. For some this preparation is not necessary but, for others, like me and I think many others, it is indispensable.

Prayer is very much like the Bible. The Bible is up there with the best-sellers but when it comes to reading it, the matter is quite different. There are many, many books on prayer, some better than others, and someone approaching this topic in a bookstore will be overwhelmed by all of the titles available. But, in spite of this great proliferation of books, when one speaks to people we quickly get to see that the practise of prayer is not directly proportional to the amount of material printed on prayer.

Why do we pray? There are many answers given to this question. We have what are called petitionary prayers where we present our needs before God. There are prayers of gratitude, of mourning, of praise, and many other things. And, just as with many other things, prayer is a gradual growth in us so that we will soon realize certain aspects of a prayer life are for us and others are not, until we become a little better grounded in our faith. A very common characteristic of the prayer life of most of us is its inconstancy. We start out with zeal and great resolve and this peters out and we drift away from prayer. We get tugged this way and that way by the siren calls of the events of our lives and we put prayers aside. One of the reasons for this is that prayers do not give an immediate gratification and in our fallen nature, we find it difficult to persist in something that is not immediately satisfying our present perceived needs. Because of this, we will find that prayer is hard work which requires discipline and resolve to persist in.

Certain approaches have been devised which assist us in combatting the temptation to be sporadic in our prayer life. However, it should be kept constantly in mind that prayer is a relationship between two - you and God and because of this, cut and dry rules are impossible in order to pray. The rules are there to assist you in coming to prayer; but prayer is, in a sense, a secret between you and God. This is one of the reasons for a reticence on the part of spiritual directors to talk about their own private prayer life.

What is crucial for prayer is to develop a sense of the continual presence of God. One of the biggest enemies that we have to struggle with is forgetfulness both of God and of our true needs. If we were to believe, and truly believe, that God is right there before us, we would behave in a very different manner and we would find that our prayers would take on a different character. However, we must work with what we have and that is a lukewarm sense of God, a sense that is further weakened by the demands of our daily lives. You will be amazed how things come up that we have to pay attention to and at the same time weaken our resolve to pray.

But prayer offers something that cannot be obtained in any other manner. One of the foundation layers of science in Europe was Roger Bacon who stated that there are three ways in which man can get knowledge: authority, reason, and finally experience and it is experience which is the most convincing and the longest lasting source of knowledge. It is prayer that offers us the opportunity for experience and therein lies one of the problems for a sustained life of prayer. Many of us do not experience much during prayers and we simply give up. However, experience is not undervalued by Christianity. The early definition of Christians was those who were witnesses to the Resurrection. It is only those who have beheld the Resurrection with their own eyes, it is only they who are capable of worshipping Christ. You see, if we are not witnesses to the Resurrection of Christ, how could we possibly pray to Him?

Our earliest introduction to the Resurrection is in the sacrament of entry into the Church - the sacrament of baptism. It is through this that we die and are resurrected in Christ.

I must confess to you, Theophilus, that for the longest of time, for me, God was an abstract concept. God was some idea, some perfection, something unattainable. I was struck, and this was a real revelation to me, how different this is to what the Christian Church teaches. God is palpable; He is here; He may be beyond all definitions but He is experienceable. This is the essence of spirituality - not some exalted idea but the closeness and experience of God.

Remember that we are called on to have faith and what this means is that our knowledge about God may be imperfect but this does not affect our ability to experience God and live in a close union with Him. In a sense, the term God has been used by humanity to describe, to give a name to a powerful and life-changing encounter. Remember that in the Old Testament, God is not just a noun but a verb. He is dynamic, I am who am, He is life and yet, we often lock Him away in dusty definitions and dry words. Don't misunderstand me; words and definition are important but they have to be wedded to experience. Maybe this is one of the reasons that many have fallen away from a living faith. We do not have this living, vibrant experience of God.

Mind you, this does not happen in an hour, or in a week or in even a year. It takes time and diligence and discipline and above all, desire. We have been sent a love letter, the Bible, with an accompanying proposal of marriage and we have to a large extent, simply ignored this.

So, where do we begin? There is almost universal agreement on this within all of the main branches of Christendom. We begin with repentance. By repentance, we mean not just that we have done something wrong, but, more seriously, there is something wrong with us. We have an illness, a wound and until this is addressed, we cannot make much progress. Our journey begins with the acknowledgement that we are in need. If we do not feel this, or do not acknowledge this, then prayer and spirituality is not for us.

There is something in the concept of repentance that the modern mind rebels against and this feeling comes from a sense of pride. How dare anybody tell us that we are wrong or that we are in need? It is this powerful sin of pride which blocks our way to further growth. So, what does repentance mean in practice for us? How do we go about repenting?

Repentance means a realization that something has gone awry and that it needs correction and that there is a means for carrying this out. This is the beginning. What this calls for is a daily revision of our day, of what we have done, a realization of actions of ours which may caused pain to others or actions which violated our relationship with God. One way to gauge our position before God are the commandments. This is completed by remembering the seven (the usual number, but it sometimes varies) main sins to which we are all prone. Having carried out this review, and expressed it before God as part of our prayers, we now express sorrow for our actions (or sometimes inactions, because sins can be those of commission and those of omission) and make a resolve not to repeat these sins. And here we come to the crucial crux of the matter, one that discourages us and stands in our way like a large looming impediment, to further progress. We know, as we are making this promise that we will fall, that we will not be able to keep our promise and this is what makes everything so discouraging and what causes us to declare: what's the use, nothing really changes. This is a very subtle temptation, and it seems to recall humility, but it is a false humility and at the back of it all is the adversary or as he was known in the Middle East throughout the long years of history, Satan. But, more about this in the next letter.

Yours, as always,

Bar-Abbas