Luigi Gioia - Say It To God

SAY IT TO GOD

To Pauline Matarasso

For her friends a grace

To Bram and Peter

Certainty wells up within

Lord, teach us to pray. These words of Jesus disciples still resonate today. If were honest, most of us would admit that prayer is not always easy, or enjoyable, and rarely comes naturally. We struggle with distractions, anxious thoughts and commitments. This book agrees! Prayer is tough. And the author does not try and give easy solutions. Instead, he takes us on a journey through great prayers from Scripture. The Psalms. The prayers of Old Testament prophets. But most of all, the prayers of Jesus. In the prayers of Jesus we discover our identity as children of God. We discover that prayer is not about us making efforts to knock on the door of a God too busy or distant to listen, but instead, that it is responding to a God who has already started the conversation with us. A God who wants nothing more than to spend time with us, help us grow, and surprise us.

Surprises are not always welcome. Sometimes the God we find in prayer is not the Santa-like God we wish he was. This God stretches us, challenges us and leads on unexpected paths. Luigi Gioia encourages us to respond to Gods prompting, to face what gets in our way and to follow with child-like trust to explore a new way of being with God: to pray as, and with, Jesus, in freedom and trust. This book is therefore a perfect companion for Lent: a book to lead us through an examination of our lives, of its priorities, and to encourage us to hear the God who is already speaking. The final chapter captures the book beautifully: when it comes to prayer, keep it simple, keep it short, keep it real. And as we bring the whole of ourselves before God, he answers the prayer we started with Lord, teach us to pray.

++ Justin Cantuar

Lambeth Palace

January 2017

What is prayer really about? Not prayers, but prayer, not just saying things to God but touching God or rather being touched by him. What does an authentic prayer, a prayer that truly relies on the power of the resurrection, look like?

We should beware of our search for the best place, for the ideal conditions and for the perfect way to pray. This might lead us to forget a basic law of Christian prayer: prayer is always already there, already going on in our heart, wherever we are, whatever we do, whatever our feelings. The moment we realize this, we are praying. Great saints have often spoken of prayer being like breathing or having to become like breathing; that is something that should stay with us always.

Here I want to share a personal story.

I am seventeen, my faith has just come alive, I have discovered the Psalms and fallen in love with them, and have just read a wonderful book on prayer. So I try to enter into the habit of praying daily, or having my daily quiet time as some people nicely call it. And, well, it works! The five minutes a day I had decided to devote to prayer soon seem too short: they become fifteen, twenty, twenty-five minutes. I add five more minutes every day and I am not bored, I love it, it gives me so much peace, so much joy.

Those first lucky days, for a reason I do not remember, I had my home all to myself, so I could enjoy all the silence and the peace I wanted. But this blessed time was not going to last . . . I have three siblings, younger than me, the little one was two or three at the time love them to pieces, but they could be so annoying, bless them.

So imagine the scene: I shut myself in my room, I sit on a chair, I read a psalm, re-read it, a sentence strikes me, I close my eyes and try to repeat it gently with my heart. My siblings are playing hide and seek, one of them is unhappy about something, they start arguing. The little one starts crying and comes banging at my door: so frustrating . . . I still try to keep focused, but am increasingly angry, exasperation mounts and at one point I end up shouting at my siblings to shut up, not once but several times, until, discouraged and ridden with guilt for losing my temper, I give up!

This scene occurs two or three times until, at the end of that week, I talk about the experience with a Benedictine monk. In the course of that conversation I receive an unforgettable lesson about prayer.