One of my readers responded beautifully to the theological question I posed, and I'd like to share his words with you today in the form of a "guest" posting. Please enjoy!
And thank you, Scott, for sharing your wisdom with all of us!
Scott Johnson blogs over at Yearning for Plenitude. Be sure to check him out!
Hi Lisa!
Your blog said to email any response, so here are a few thoughts from my perspective. Thanks for asking!
I
would think that no matter in what manner we invoke the
Saints or angels to pray for us,
God's grace is involved in making it possible for them to hear us.
(actually, perhaps less so in the case of angels, who have spiritual
powers that we don't have; just speculation).
Any
Saint who is in heaven is no longer living in this world. Their life is
now in eternity with God, in a different realm (the heavenly realm)
than we are in. They do not experience earthly life or events (that
is--by their own natural powers alone). In other words, Saints in
heaven, it seems to me (and I could be wrong here), are not able simply
by nature, to "hear" us, whether we
are saying
something out loud or using our body to gesture, or, just speaking in
the silence of our minds. They are not here to hear us, so-to-speak. So,
just by nature, I don't think they can hear or see us no matter what we
are doing, externally or internally. (And after all, until the
resurrection of the dead, they have no bodies, so, they literally have
no physical ears or eyes until the resurrection restores their bodies;
but that doesn't really matter because there is no physical connection
in air or space between them and us, as though sound waves could reach
their ears from our lips). So, not to belabor this, but, in a way, the
Saints are more removed from us than a person here on earth on the other
side of the planet. That is merely physical. They are no longer in the
same created realm of existence with us. (they, living in heaven, are in
a more "real," more alive "place," than we are).
BUT, all that being said, whenever we pray and ask a Saint to pray for
us, in whatever way we pray (external or internal), they do hear us,
because God makes it possible for them to hear us. Exactly how does this
work? I don't know (I don't think we'll know until the next life). But,
keep in mind, being in heaven, the Saints enjoy a direct living
connection "face-to-face" with God. They have an immediate friendship
with God in His loving presence that means they have a certain ongoing
and direct link/contact/encounter, with God in His living reality. That
means, I think, that it would be very natural for God to
permit particular persons
(saints in heaven) to have little windows of access to what He sees and
knows in His omniscience. So, whenever we are praying to a Saint, God
of course is fully and totally aware of this. It's a simple thing for
Him to allow that Saint to "see"--through and in their living heavenly
contact with Him--our prayers . Merely a matter of God's moving aside
the veil for them, to one very particular aspect of His ongoing divine
awareness of the created realm. I also imagine that the level of
completeness of this awareness could be significant, or perhaps only
somewhat dim. Perhaps it varies. (so, in one instance, maybe they have
only a distant awareness of the words; perhaps in another maybe they
"hear" our voice, perhaps in another they have a vision of our physical
reality as well as our voice, etc.)
I would hesitate to go so far as to think that the Saints cannot be
aware of merely mental prayers asking for their intercession.
Personally, over the course of a day, I often say a Hail Mary silently
in my mind in situations where it would be inappropriate to pray out
loud. I don't think there's really any difference between how they can
know our internal mental prayer vs. externally expressed vocal prayers.
It "works" the same way in either case--totally needing God to make it
happen. (Indeed, it's an inherently supernatural thing to be able to be
aware of the thoughts and words of people in one realm of
existence--earth--from within another realm of existence--the eternity
of
heaven).
Also, though, I would agree that there is definitely something to what
you say in regard to more pious, more physical ways of praying as
compared to merely mental prayer. We know that there are different
levels of earnestness and seriousness to our prayer. And anytime we pray
with our whole self in a more complete way (body and mind and heart all
together), that's a good thing.
And, also, it's good to remember that none of this is simply automatic.
In other words, a person praying with their body and verbally out loud
can actually be doing so in a way that is very rote--in a sort of
mindless autopilot--and their mind and heart be quite disengaged. It's
possible a person laying motionless in bed could be praying in much a
deeper and devout way than someone kneeling in front of an icon praying
out loud. Now, the ideal, I would say, is when we can pray in such a way
that we involve our whole being, with our mind, heart, soul, body, all
deeply involved and engaged. That's the ideal. But we still, of course,
need to be actively engaging our will in a disposition of attentiveness
and love. Involving our bodies normally helps with this. But it's not
necessarily
automatic.
Perhaps thinking about some various situations when people might be
praying, can shed further light on this interesting subject. Here's a
few that come to mind:
--I
heard of a woman
(Fr. Groeschel mentioned her in a talk) who was bed-ridden and fully
paralyzed. She could not talk and could move nothing except her eyes.
There was a large rosary hung on the wall opposite her bed that she
could look at. Fr. G said she would look at those beads and follow the
rosary with her eyes and was in constant prayer. If I recall, he said
something to the effect of those are probably some of the most powerful
rosaries ever prayed, and were the most deeply moving rosaries he had
ever prayed when he joined her in prayer and all she could do was move
her eyes. I think he said he learned a lot about prayer simply sitting
silently with her and praying with this woman of great faith. He knew
she was a woman of very devout faith and was deeply in union with Jesus.
--Religious communities that pray in common, including times when they
are together in silent meditation, recognize that individual brothers or
sisters when present in the chapel with other community members, for
the sake of everyone's own peace and individual prayer not to be
disrupted by others, need to pray silently, and usually this also means
with a minimum of physical movement as well. There is a certain prayer
decorum, if you will, that attains among a religious community when they
pray in silent meditation together in their chapel. Of course, it's
good also for individual members to have private prayer time alone with
Jesus (wherever that is; it could be the chapel at other times, in their
own room, outside in a garden, etc.). But
there is
something valuable in itself to be together as a community even in
silent meditation. In Dominican life, the daily communal prayer of the
community included both the verbal prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours
that we would sing together (Morning prayer, Evening prayer, etc.), as
well has (shorter) times of simply being silent together in personal
meditation. And also, it was important too for each brother to have
private prayer time alone as well (which might involve more external
postures of the body, according to the inclinations of the individual).
So, I think what the
above shows, is that there is no one-size-fits-all rule for what prayer
looks like that is necessarily more powerful or deep compared to other
types of prayer. A person unable to use their body, or a person in quiet
meditation in a community, could be engaged in extremely deep and
powerful prayer--and the Saints invoked in such prayer times surely hear
them.
I hope this doesn't come across in any way as being at all negative
about praying with our bodies in an external way (kneeling, verbally
speaking out loud,, etc.). These things are very good! But, depending on
the
situation and our circumstances, they don't automatically mean that our
prayers are more powerful.
All things being equal (ha! when is that ever true?), it is probably true to say there is something more ideal when we pray with our entire being. But sometimes it's actually not appropriate (e.g. in silent communal prayer with a community). And it's only more ideal (when it's possible and appropriate) if it is the case that our heart and mind are in agreement with the outward devotion expressed by our bodies.
All things being equal (ha! when is that ever true?), it is probably true to say there is something more ideal when we pray with our entire being. But sometimes it's actually not appropriate (e.g. in silent communal prayer with a community). And it's only more ideal (when it's possible and appropriate) if it is the case that our heart and mind are in agreement with the outward devotion expressed by our bodies.
Oh, and one last remark that comes to mind! :) St. Francis de Sales
would counsel that our religious devotion should be exercised in a way
that we do not make our faith and our piety an unnecessary burden that
we put upon other people. Trying to become a person of deep and regular
prayer and growing in closeness to Christ should not mean that in so
doing we add to what other people suffer because of us. One easy
hypothetical example that comes to mind . . . I would imagine that in
the case of spouses sharing the same bed, it may actually be
inconsiderate for one spouse to remember that she didn't pray as she
ought before going
to bed and to
get out of bed to kneel and pray even though doing so would wake or
disturb the spouse next to her who was asleep and, say, is a light
sleeper. But the particular circumstances matter here (e.g. If the
spouse were a heavy sleeper and would not be disturbed, then this would
be fine; or if they were both awake and desired to pray together, etc.).
St. Dominic when he prayed in private at night, was known to be very
physical in his personal prayer. He was known to hardly ever use a
regular bed in the various communities of the Dominicans he founded
because he would spend the
night in the community chapel praying (I guess he took power naps at
various times and situations in the day; I think he would also spend
short times asleep in front of the tabernacle, altar, or cross in the
chapel--it's almost like given the choice between a bed in a cell, and
being with Jesus in the chapel, he just could not resist the latter).
The brothers would be curious about the holy Saint's prayer life, so
they would sometimes go to peek in at him to see what he was doing in
the chapel. This is how we have some of these descriptions of his
personal prayer. His personal prayer became known as the "Nine ways" of
prayer of St. Dominic and they tend to be quite physical. Reading these,
to me at least, is quite moving. Here is a link. Enjoy!
God bless you and love you!
Scott