Simple Prayers

Nowadays, I usually don't ask for little things. For the most part I have tried to focus my prayers on the bigger picture or the long view. I've been asking the more difficult requests that probably won't be answered right away, (eg; world peace, end to abortion, all the souls in purgatory ect...)  On the more self directed prayers, I have been asking for help to be a better follower of Christ, discerning His will and increasing in holiness  I will admit that in the past I had some pretty shallow prayers. More like vanity prayers. All about me and my shallow not very spiritual desires. Thankfully, I have mostly grown out of that. Yet, there are simple prayers and I finally took advantage of asking for simple things. I recently read Story of a Soul by St. Therese de Lisieux. Her spirituality is a simple spirituality. She wrote that she is was small and weak to do big things like go to far off lands and preaching the gospel so she would offer up little sacrifices and prayers. She wanted these little sacrifices and prayers to add up to saving many souls that she would otherwise not be able to personally minister to. This was her way and she is an extremely popular Saint because her little way is more accessible to the masses. In other words, an intellectual and spiritual lightweight like myself can subscribe to this sort of spirituality.  However, unlike St. Therese, my simple prayers were not of any spiritual significance or growth. Or maybe they are in some ways. The other day I was trying to drill a hole in the wall to install a shelf. The drill bit got stuck in the wall and I got very frustrated. Each attempt at trying to get it out would fail and I almost said some bad words and I almost took the Lord's name in vane. Finally, I said out loud, "God, please help me get this drill bit out. I don't want to say bad words and sin. Please help me!"
I tried one more time, screwing the drill back onto the bit and the bit finally came out. Prayers answered! It seems like a silly and shallow prayer but it came down to this: I found myself at risk for committing some sins and I needed God's help so that I wouldn't commit any mortal or venial sin. I just went to confession a few days ago and I really want it to last. I can't do it on my own. I needed God's help. Ask and ye shall receive. Even if it's a simple thing, I received the help I needed.
Then last night, I had some worries about things that weighed heavily on me and kept me awake. I obsessed over the problem and tossed and turned. I found myself aimlessly calling out to Jesus but wasn't even sure what I should be asking. Then, I remembered in my spiritual journaling, Jesus had already told me what I needed to do and I hadn't been doing it. I decided to pick up my journal and write. I acknowledged to Jesus that He gave me the answers but I failed to listen. I told Him my woes and  that I needed His help again. I told Him that I needed to be able to get to sleep so that I could start fresh and finally do what He told me to do. I closed my journal, turn out the lights and was out just like that. I slept really well. Praise God, another prayer answered.
I used to frown upon simple prayers. I would confuse them with vane prayers. But there is a difference. Simple prayers are asking for simple things that are not necessarily the end in themselves but the means to the end. I didn't want to sin so I asked for help with a drill bit so I wouldn't risk sinning when things didn't go my way. Or, I needed to sleep so I could be ready to do what the Lord asked me to do the next day so I prayed for a good night's rest. These were simple requests to achieve the greater good. Vane prayers are more self-centered. They're more about wanting stuff or getting one's way for no other reason than for worldly pleasure.  Like praying that you get out of jury duty, (yes, I have done this,) or for the rain to go away so you can do some sport even though maybe the rain was much needed.
Yet, I know from personal experience, God can and does answer vain prayers.  Perhaps to let us know He's there and He does answer even the smallest prayers and hopefully we mature in our spirituality and become less vain and self-centered. And somehow we learn to ask for simple things that add up to bigger things and for the greater good as St. Therese did. She desired to save souls and evangelize but she couldn't in her cloistered life while also being too sick and weak.  So she did the little things that add up to the greater good.
In my case, I was just trying to stay out of trouble and tend to more personal issues that ultimately lead to my own spiritual growth. I know eventually I have to go further and further outside myself and with St. Therese, I have the tools to be an instrument to change and peace.

Between the second mansion and third mansion.

I had a dream last week where my house was swarming with Komodo dragons. One actually bit me but strangely enough, I wasn't particularly panicked by it. I did wake up with a headache but that's probably because of the glasses of wine from the night before. I contemplated this strange dream and thought about St.Teresa of Avila's book Interior Castle. It's not an easy book to understand and I put it aside a while ago after getting to the 4th mansion in the book. So it's been on the back burner for a while. I have to admit that I just didn't think I could get past the 2nd mansion in my spiritual walk.  Here St. Teresa writes:

In this part of the castle are found souls which. have begun to practise prayer; they realize the importance of their not remaining in the first mansions, yet often lack determination to quit their present condition by avoiding occasions of sin, which is a very perilous state to be in.

However, it is a great grace that they should sometimes make good their escape from the vipers and poisonous creatures around them and should understand the need of avoiding them. In some way these souls suffer a great deal more than those in the first mansions, although not in such danger, as they begin to understand their peril and there are great hopes of their entering farther into the castle. I say that they suffer a great deal more, for those in an earlier stage are like deaf-mutes and are not so distressed at being unable to speak, while the others, who can hear but cannot talk, find it much harder. At the same time, it is better not to be deaf, and a decided advantage to hear what is said to us.

These souls hear our Lord calling them, for as they approach nearer to where His Majesty dwells He proves a loving Neighbour, though they may still be engaged in the amusements and business, the pleasures and vanities of this world. While in this state we continually fall into sin and rise again, for the creatures amongst whom we dwell are so venomous, so vicious, and so dangerous, that it is almost impossible to avoid being tripped up by them. Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him. So sweet is His voice, that the poor soul is disconsolate at being unable to follow His bidding at once, and therefore, as I said, suffers more than if it could not hear Him.

I do pray often and I do hear the Lord calling me but I was finding myself still stuck to the vanities of this world and usually have lacked the determination to move forward. I assumed to myself that I'd be here for a very long time and even though I told myself that I must move forward, I just knew I wouldn't and I didn't even know why. I guess I'm just lazy. That's the honest reality of it. I had convinced myself that I didn't have what it takes to move above and beyond my weak nature. I envisioned that when I'm an old lady going to daily Mass, then I'll have somehow moved on and maybe even make it to the fourth mansion. Mind you, there are seven mansions. Yes, I dream big! So, I had become complacent and had settled in the second mansion.

But in a recent session with the Lord in Adoration, He had more stern words for me. He said He was going to hold back showing His love to me. He loved me but He wasn't going to continue to give me consolations and that I was going to have to put others before myself and then I would start to feel His loving embrace again. I needed to start giving more. I have to surrender and humble myself as a servant. I left my session feeling a little rejected and disappointed. I knew what He was saying was spot on. Of course it is. But I just wanted to be wrapped in warm fuzzies and He was instead, a stern parent telling me I needed to grow up. I went to confession that week and then I had the dream with the Komodo dragons. I made the connection of the Interior Castle and as I thought about the dream, I revisited the book. I read about the third mansion again:

 To return to what I began to explain about the souls which have entered the third mansions. God has shown them no small favour, but a very great one, in enabling them to pass through the first difficulties. Thanks to His mercy I believe there are many such people in the world: they are very desirous not to offend His Majesty even by venial sins, they love penance and spend hours in meditation, they employ their time well, exercise themselves in works of charity to their neighbours, are well-ordered in their conversation and dress, and those who own a household govern it well. This is certainly to be desired, and there appears no reason to forbid their entrance to the last mansions; nor will our Lord deny it them if they desire it, for this is the right disposition for receiving all His favours. 

I thought more about my dream and got the sense that Jesus was telling me it was time to move on from the second mansion.  I realized Jesus has been slowly leading me out of the second mansion. Moving is difficult as anyone who has done it knows. Even when you move on to a bigger house or better place, it's still stressful. I didn't even realize I was moving. But part of the moving process involves praying and receiving the sacraments and I have been pretty diligent about doing that. All these things add up. But mentally, I am weary and lazy. Jesus doesn't expect me to do it by myself but I still have a cluttered mind. So I have taken baby steps all this time without even knowing it and have found myself on the precipice between the second and third mansion. Jesus was telling me it's time to move to the next mansion. I may actually be in the third mansion now. Maybe at the entrance. But I still have a lot of unpacking to do. I started by signing myself up as a volunteer for 40days for life as a way to get involved and come out of my shell. Hopefully this helps me settle in for the time being.

Another recurring dream that I often have is of the house with the hidden or unused room. I would always get excited at discovering the unused space. How could it have gone unnoticed and unused for so long. What cool things I could do with this extra room. The hidden rooms in our dreams are the unlocked potential in us. We all have these hidden rooms. It's no accident that St. Teresa uses a castle as the symbolic nature of the spiritual life and the human mind. Houses and dwellings are often used to symbolize the mind. In the Interior Castle we come to learn that Christ dwells in us but that we have many things getting in our way and keeping us from discovering Him from within and experience that consistent peace. The place deep in the ocean that is still in spite of the storms above. Thankfully, we have the blessed Mother always ready to take our hand and lead us through. I pray the rosary daily and rely heavily on her guidance. She's the navigator in the storm with the serpents head always being crushed beneath her feet. The Komodo dragons are bit tougher though. They're pretty big. Mama Mary can only do so much to keep reptiles from getting me. So Jesus tells it like it is and says I have to vacate this second mansion and make things a little easier for His mother to help me.

Message received my Lord.