I’ve been practicing silent prayer for a number of years now, and I’ve learned that there is a difference between prayer, focus, and calming down. In other words, being quiet doesn’t automatically mean that we’re praying. Sometimes it means that we’re simply focusing on our breathing. Other times it means that we’re unwinding ourselves from being so bound up all the time. Sometimes it means just being quiet. All of these are good, but not all of these are prayer.

I first learned about silent prayer from a Buddhist, who told me that the first step of meditation is to focus completely on one’s breathing. A first step assumes a second, but I was so bad at focusing on my breathing that I never got around to asking about the second step. I had to find out about it on my own.

I don’t know much about how a Buddhist would talk about it (and I assume that different traditions talk about silent prayer or meditation in different ways), but as a Christian, there seems to me to be a very big difference between focusing on my breath and praying. This praying is, of course, different from intercessory prayer or praying thanksgivings. These are things that all Christians are called on to do and, I think, called on to do daily. Praying silently is different, and I don’t think that it’s the same thing as simply focusing on our breathing. Focusing on our breathing leads to silent prayer. Again, it’s the first step. So, then, what is this thing called silent prayer? What’s the next step?

To be rather general, the next step is everything except union with the Godhead. After we’ve focused on our breath and so calmed ourselves down, focused ourselves, prepared the heart and mind as a garden for God to walk in, we converse with God silently. Sometimes I begin with words, explaining myself or a situation that I’m in, be it good or bad. Sometimes I ask God questions, or I think about what questions God is asking me. But more often than not, all questions and images fade away to a simple attention towards God.

Both of those words, “attention” and “towards” are important. It is like looking at God spiritually – or looking towards God spiritually. I’m not sure I’m really looking at him just yet. I’m more of peering around a corner at him or looking down a hallway and seeing his light reflected on the wall ahead of me. I think of it as turning my attention in a particular direction, because it seems to me that there is something in front of me that is not to my side, or above me, or behind me. Actually, the direction of God seems to be sort of up and to the right a little. I’m not really sure what that means, but it gives me the sense of God being present somewhere and not just everywhere.

I also feel alternately, as if I’m in a current of God. The image that comes to my mind is of some range of plants growing up from the bottom of the sea, and all of them waving back and forth, in unison, in the current. Sometimes I feel like my heart is one of those plants. Othertimes, it seems like I’m only looking at the plants and the current, knowing but not experiencing the flow.

All of this makes me rather calm, and it focuses me (at least sometimes), but, again, the calm and the focus aren’t the prayer. The attention is. Turn your hearts and minds towards God. Or, as in the liturgy, lift up your hearts. The Eucharistic prayer, the canon or main part of the Mass, begins with a few moments of silence, then an invitation by the priest to turn our hearts and minds towards God. That is the position, the disposition, the attention that we should have during that Eucharistic prayer and, hopefully, that we retain as we receive the most Blessed Sacrament.

I’m being a bit personal here, partially because I like thinking about these things (I am a priest after all), but also because I hope that they encourage you to think about them as well. I spent a bit of time in academia, and retain a love of hearing how other people approach or understand things like their prayer lives or the prayers of the Church. I could spend all day listening to people tell me about what their prayer time is like (and some days that’s all I do; those are good days). If you feel up to it, I invite you to write a bit in the comments about how you experience prayer, be it silence or otherwise. I would love to hear your thoughts.