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Understanding what prayer is goes a long way when tacking problems with distraction in prayer. Father Hugh and Cy discuss how to start praying, and what distraction in prayer means, which is maybe less than you think.
Cy Kellett:
Distracted in prayer? Father Hugh Barbour with help next. Hello and welcome to Catholic Answers Focus, the podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host, and I get distracted constantly. Wait, should I start again? What was I saying? No. I get distracted constantly and my prayer life is full of distractions, and so our good friend, Father Hugh Barbour, Norbertine priest, former Prior of the Abbey of St. Michael in Orange County, came in, sat me down, and helped me overcome my distraction in prayer. I hope it’s helpful for you. Here’s Father Hugh Barbour.
Father Hugh Barbour:
Would you like to start with a prayer?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. We should start with a prayer, Father. Yeah.
Father Hugh Barbour:
I wonder why.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Yeah. It’ll help me.
Father Hugh Barbour:
But it’s with a challenge. We’ll start with the Hail Mary and see if you can keep your mind on it the whole time.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, okay. All right. I hope our listeners will do the same.
Father Hugh Barbour:
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.
Cy Kellett:
Holy Mary, mother of God. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Father Hugh Barbour:
Mary, seed of wisdom.
Cy Kellett:
Pray for us.
Father Hugh Barbour:
Holy angels of God.
Cy Kellett:
Pray for us.
Father Hugh Barbour:
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Cy Kellett:
Amen.
Father Hugh Barbour:
So how did you do?
Cy Kellett:
What was I doing again? I forgot.
Father Hugh Barbour:
You’re supposed to be paying attention.
Cy Kellett:
I know there was a task you gave me.
Father Hugh Barbour:
So if you know what the topic of today’s podcast is. Will you please tell me?
Cy Kellett:
The topic of the podcast is, Distraction In Prayer.
Father Hugh Barbour:
There you go.
Cy Kellett:
Okay, so here’s my problem. Let me start here. I have two problems with distraction in prayer. At least two, but I had two that I …
Father Hugh Barbour:
Okay, that you’ll admit to.
Cy Kellett:
That’s right, actually. Yeah. I don’t want to admit to the evil ones. I just want to admit to the innocent ones. The first one is, the distraction that does not permit me to start. I don’t mean not permit like I’m trying to avoid responsibility, I just mean the thing that prevents me to start praying. And then, the distraction in the course of prayer when often, like if I’m saying my prayers at night, I can’t remember… “Wait, did I just say it?” Because there’s a certain prayer … “Did I just say that prayer? Or am I on that prayer now?”
Father Hugh Barbour:
So which decade am I on?
Cy Kellett:
“Where am I?” Yeah. Definitely. Where would you like to start? With the [inaudible 00:02:33].
Father Hugh Barbour:
I think your questions are perfect for our discussion.
Cy Kellett:
All right then.
Father Hugh Barbour:
By your first question, you brought it to a deeper level of discussion than I had intended to go to, but it would be very complimentary to what we have to say, which I always take from St. Thomas’ Summa, where he has a question in the Summa, question 83 of the Secunda Secundae, “Whether it is necessary to pray with attention?” Attention. With attention. And he has a very interesting, subtle, and refined answer to this question.
Cy Kellett:
How like Thomas.
Father Hugh Barbour:
You will find consoling, because if you know anything about the Summa, you know that when he begins a question, whether it’s necessary to pray with attention, then he’s going to say, “It seems that it is…”
Cy Kellett:
Not necessary.
Father Hugh Barbour:
No. “It seems that it is necessary to pray with attention.” That means he’s going to conclude differently from what he begins with, because he starts with the objections. So you begin and you go, “How could this possibly be? It seems that he’s going to argue that you don’t have to be attentive in your prayers?” So, we’ll have to look into that in a second, but you brought up the deeper question.
Cy Kellett:
I did?
Father Hugh Barbour:
How to get started altogether? And this is at the root of St. Thomas’ answer to the question about attention. So you just handed it to me on a platter and I wasn’t even expecting it.
Cy Kellett:
I planned that.
Father Hugh Barbour:
That is really a brilliant [crosstalk 00:03:55].
Cy Kellett:
It was months of planning. Months of planing went into that.
Father Hugh Barbour:
In order to pray, you have to start praying and to start praying, you have to choose to pray with your free will, and there’s the struggle. Am I going to do it or not do it? And somehow, over us sometimes comes a lassitude, it’s a fancy Latin word for just being limp. A limpness spiritually, where we just don’t get started. Especially, in our culture today, we have so many things. I mean, before it would be, “Gee, that bed looks comfortable…
Cy Kellett:
Exactly.
Father Hugh Barbour:
…. maybe I’ll just make the sign of the cross and go to sleep.” Okay. There is that possibility-
Cy Kellett:
Are you watching me at night father?
Father Hugh Barbour:
All right. We used to have a beloved priest friend of ours in Rome. He used to joke about, when he would have to come… He worked at the Holy See, and he had to come home late at night from these meetings. And so he’d missed compline, the night prayer of the church. And so he would jokingly say, “Well, when I get the key out to open the door, I say, Oh God, come to my assistance. And as I open the door and take off my hat and put my coat, I say, glory, be to the father and to the son and to the Holy spirit. And then, as I take off my scarf and my shirt and get ready to put my pajamas on, I say to thee before the close of day to him …” and whatnot, he goes through the whole compline until he’s finally brushed his teeth and he’s done everything.
And then he lies in bed and says, [Latin 00:00:05:40].
Cy Kellett:
I hate to say this, but this priest is better than I am. I don’t even do that.
Father Hugh Barbour:
He knows the whole thing my heart, but he also knows that he can … it’s very oriental kind of thing. He just goes through it as he’s going about as businesses, he always like that. But anyway, no, the point here is that we have to begin to pray and an intention means that our mind … intention, is an intellectual word, it means we have in mind what it is we want to choose. And so that forms our intention.
And our intention is to pray, but then to pray has to be an act of our will. We have to choose to do it. Yes. “Well I wanted to pray, I intended to pray, but I really didn’t,” or wherever. That’s not praying, you have to actually decide to do it. So the first thing is you decide to do it. And that is an inscrutable instant, we’ve all experienced it where we finally just move ourselves and do it.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Yes.
Father Hugh Barbour:
One of the best things for this is to live in a family or a community, whether of a family or religious community, or a group of friends where you pray together at regular times. So if mom and dad have the kids, they have morning prayers and they have evening prayers. And the family rosary, they don’t omit those because they know the little children are looking at them, expecting the example, even if they may be resisting.
So the first thing is to have a discipline of prayer among those who you live. But if you don’t live with anybody, you still have that obligation to pray. It’s it doesn’t take a particular form necessarily for lay people during the week, it’s not like Sunday mass. But let’s just say they were told, “Be watchful, pray constantly.” And the scriptures constantly say, “Pray without ceasing.” We’re told to pray. And so we have to choose to do it. Maybe choosing to pray is one of the more fundamental and simple choices we can do. So you’re exactly right.
Our intention needs to be seconded by our will, our choice. Now, what is our will for, it’s the power that we have. The intellect is the power to form our intention and to know something, to determine it with our knowledge, our will is the power to love something or someone. It’s the power of loving. And so, basically you have to tell yourself, “I must now spend some time loving God explicitly, directly, personally. He like all other beings who love us, would like us to express consciously in the moment (as we like to say nowadays, in the moment) consciously and directly express our love for him by turning our minds towards him.” As the catechism says it, “Raising of our mind and heart to God in prayer,” that comes from St. John Davidson.
All right. So that particular fact is something that is within our power, but we need to spice it up a bit. We need to consider that prayer is not just that material boring exercise from which we get easily distracted. But rather prayer is as Saint Teresa of Avila says, “Conversation with one whom we know loves us.” It’s a really good description.
Cy Kellett:
But if I may say-
Father Hugh Barbour:
Very different from not feeling like praying.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Following the way you just described it, having the intention to pray, and then something is pushing against the will. Whatever it is, just inertia maybe or I don’t know.
Father Hugh Barbour:
Some other object-
Cy Kellett:
Or something. Yeah. Right. Something-
Father Hugh Barbour:
… for instance, catching our will like the television set or a sandwich or something.
Cy Kellett:
You do watch me at night. That’s exactly. The television set and a sandwich. Both not one or the other.
Father Hugh Barbour:
In your case, it will be a samich.
Cy Kellett:
A samich yeah. Right. But it’s after the act of will to pray that the consciousness of loving God returns, it’s not before it, do you see what I’m saying? That it’s like, once you move into praying, then it’s the thing that was out here and fuzzy now it’s concrete. Am I making any sense?
Father Hugh Barbour:
It makes sense. Basically, you have the experience of going, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”
Cy Kellett:
Exactly. Yeah, right.
Father Hugh Barbour:
“It would have been so easy to if I’d … Why am I resisting this?”
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Why am I resisting.
Father Hugh Barbour:
Well, what’s called temptation. Remember the song “Temptation Is Making Me Wait.” It’s Making Me Wait. All right.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. I think that might be, “Anticipation Is Making Me Wait.”
Father Hugh Barbour:
Excuse me. Anticipation. Okay. Sorry. That’s temptation. I got it wrong. Forget it. Scratch that wrong song. I’m not good with the 60 songs anyway, so it was fine. I know some of them. But even don’t wait, just go about it, start praying. And once you start, you will receive the fruits thereof. But if we consider prayer is, raising our mind and heart to God, so it’s about our heart, about our love for him.
And then as Saint Teresa of Avila says, “Who knows more about prayer than just about anyone? She says, prayer is conversation with the one who we know loves us. If we had an immediate insight in the course of our day, that Jesus is looking at us with love, wouldn’t we return his [crosstalk 00:11:11], wouldn’t look back at him, even if only for a moment,” or anyone for that matter.
If you’re walking down the street and there’s some beautiful person walking towards you and they look on you with love-
Cy Kellett:
This happens to me all the time. I can’t even tell you.
Father Hugh Barbour:
I’m just teasing you. But anyways, so probably in that case, you should look away, but that’s different. Okay. But this is the savior we normally return love for love, and that’s what prayer is all about in the end. I liked your first question. That’s very important. We have to get started. And the way we get started is by being aware that we’re talking to one who loves us and making that choice, and the choice is in the power of the will and the will is the faculty of love. Yeah. So whatever else we know about prayer, we know that it’s love and therefor-
Cy Kellett:
That’s helpful.
Father Hugh Barbour:
… we need our will for it.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. Then into distraction in prayer, and it’s interesting to me that Thomas does always start with the objection and the objection is that yes, we do have to be attentive.
Father Hugh Barbour:
It starts with a resolution of the question which appears to support the objection. So he says, It’s necessary to pray with attention.” And he goes, “Well, it depends on what you mean by necessary.” And so, something which is necessary to obtain the effect… Necessary is described, something which you need in order to obtain the effect of an activity. So is it necessary to pray for attention, i.e is attention necessary in order for you to obtain the effect of prayer? He clarifies it that way. Your attention, is it necessary to obtain the effect of prayer? Or what’s the effect of prayer? It’s obtaining from God what we asked for, and it is the enjoyment of his presence and it is the merit of prayer as well, all three of those things.
It’s first, the merit, whatever it is we’re asking for. And then the enjoyment of union with God, those are the effects of prayer. Now, “Is attention necessary to obtain those three effects?” We asked simply, and then he answers the question based on that, because he takes the question necessary very carefully. And because he doesn’t begin with … Well anyway, he wants to explain something, which is very important for Christians, otherwise we would almost feel like we never have prayed ever successfully in our entire life. He gives a very consulting answer.
First of all, if we’ve made the intention to pray a deliberate choice to pray, and let’s just say, we’re talking here just simply about vocal prayer, it could apply to any kind of prayer, but vocal prayer is the simplest model. And so we intend to pray. We’re going to pray rosary, and we make that intention, then, if that intention is not retracted, if it’s not counseled by a contrary intention, then we receive the first effect of our prayer, which is the merit of prayer.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Father Hugh Barbour:
All right. So if we don’t retract our intention, we’re praying. Then secondly, the effect of that prayer, what it is we want to obtain that also is not obstructed as long as our intention to pray is not obstructed. And so those are two things that are very important. Now, “Human weakness,” St. Thomas says, “Makes it so that it’s easy for the mind to wander as we are praying. But as long as that weakness is not completely contrary to our intention to pray, then it’s a fault that is easily forgiven by God.
Now, what do we call a fault that’s easily forgiven by God?
Cy Kellett:
Venial sin.
Father Hugh Barbour:
Venial. But you have to understand venial sin is … for St. Thomas, “A lot more venial than we think and yet, sometimes a lot less venial than we think.” But the fact is venial means easy to forgive. Almost the word Venial means, worthy of or suitable for being forgiven of, venial fault. It’s doesn’t just mean on the way to mortal sin and especially not in the case of prayer, because even if you don’t succeed in praying, it’s not as though what you did was so bad that it’s some horrible thing you just were distracted.
So you confess distractions in prayer, that’s fine. But you can have certain kinds of lack of attention in prayer that don’t mean you retracted your intention. You sit down to pray the rosary, you kneel down to pray the rosary and you pray it. And then you realize a whole decade has gone by and you can’t remember which mystery you’re on. Do you have to repeat the mystery?
Cy Kellett:
No.
Father Hugh Barbour:
No. Because while you were saying those words, if someone asks you, “What are you doing? What are you intending to do?” You would say, “I’m intending to pray the rosary. But thank you for reminding me because I was distracted.”
Cy Kellett:
Because I was asleep. Right?
Father Hugh Barbour:
Exactly. But the point is, the distraction does not take away the reality of the prayer. And this is very important because so often we think that our prayer was not very good because we did not pay much attention. Now what we mean by that is kind of like in a meal, so you’re sitting down and you decide because it’s lent or something you’re not going to put any butter or salt on your mashed potatoes. And so eat the plain mashed potatoes. And you say to yourself, not to the chef, you say, “That wasn’t very good,” because you didn’t do the extra attentive care for what you were doing that would have made it delightful. And that’s the third thing.
If you want your prayer to be delightful, then you do have to pay attention. That’s why the rosary is so perfect because it has the basic, “I’m praying now. Name of the father, the son, and the Holy spirit. I believe in God, the father almighty and creator of heaven and earth,” as fast as an Irishman can say it. And I’ve heard it fast before I went to [inaudible 00:17:18] for the penitential pilgrimage, which I need to take every week, but I only have done once in my life. But any case that pilgrimage, they hail Mary very quickly, but who in his right mind would call that something other than prayer.
These people are praying. They’re praying with their bodies. They’re barefoot, they’re fasting, they’re keeping vigil, but they’re also just praying. The first intention is fulfilled in the rosary just by saying those prayers. And then, the second one of course is obtained because you’re addressing the almighty God for particular intention that you have. You’re praying for yourself, your family, or just for the things that the prayers themselves mention.
But then, if you want to have the sweetness or consolation of the prayer, then you’re going to have to pay close attention and get something out of the meaning of the words. And that’s something which requires close attention. But that goes along with the prayer. St. Thomas says, “There are three different ways of paying attention to your prayers.” This is the subset of the discussion.
What are those ways? Well, first of all, you can pay attention to the words. This is how we teach our children to pray, just pay attention to the words, learn to say them. And sometimes little children, they don’t even know the meaning of the words they’re saying. “What is God’s name?” Little child was asked in confirmation class in Louisiana. “Hallow?”
Cy Kellett:
Hallowed be thy-
Father Hugh Barbour:
And the teacher said, “What do you I mean, that’s not God’s name. What’s God’s name.” He said, “Hallow.” And then he looked at the sister and just, “Hallowed be thy name, your excellency.” “Oh, now I get it.” Okay. The child-
Cy Kellett:
Thought God’s name was Hallow.
Father Hugh Barbour:
He was actually right, because his name is hallowed. It’s holy, it’s sacred, but anyway, that sort of thing. So we don’t always understand the meaning of the words in our early childhood, but who would refuse the name of prayer to the humble prayers of a little child who is learning to lisp. As the old scripture used to say, “Children’s lisping prayers,” as they learned to say them, and that’s one thing. Attention to the words.
Now, that’s not so strange because say you have these younger priests now learning to say the Latin mass. And they learned to say it, but their Latin is not that good, but they can pronounce the words correctly. Well, this is also prayer. I’ve heard people mock and go, “Well, they don’t even know Latin.” Well, they know that the church gives us those prayers, they can look at the translation. And if they say them with due attention to their form, they’re really praying.
Cy Kellett:
Yes.
Father Hugh Barbour:
St. Thomas says, “Attention to the material words is prayer. It’s not just rattling on, because you’re not rattling on, you’re paying attention to the words. Remember in our Lord’s time, he grew up praying in liturgical language.
Cy Kellett:
Hebrew.
Father Hugh Barbour:
You’re right. They prayed in Hebrew.
Cy Kellett:
It’s what were doing.
Father Hugh Barbour:
And the apostles did that too. And so, we can’t claim that it’s non-evangelical or not what Jesus did. And over the cross were written his name in three languages that were not normally spoken by people, unless you argue that the Hebrew one really meant Aramaic, but okay. But that’s neither here nor there.
That situation, the little child learning the prayers or the priest, or the sister. Teresa [inaudible 00:20:38] she prayed the divine office for her whole religious life entirely in Latin. She didn’t know Latin at all, but who would deny the Teresa of [inaudible 00:20:46] or Avila we’re not praying when they did the divine office. Right. In fact, would that I could pray the divine office like they did.
Cy Kellett:
Like them.
Father Hugh Barbour:
Paying attention to the material words, that’s number one, to paying attention to the meaning of the material words, with that requires of course, knowledge of the language. And that’s why that’s better altogether to know the language. So pay attention to the meaning of the words. You can think of the meaning of the “our father” as you’re saying it or the hail Mary or of the Psalms.
With the Psalms. It’s especially powerful because they hit us more directly because we don’t say them as over and over again the way we do the “our father and the hail Mary.” So then we pay attention to the meaning, but then there’s another way of paying attention. And that is simply to be attentive to the presence of God whom we are addressing. And that is sufficient. That’s all sufficient actually. And so, those three forms of attention go along with fulfilling our intention to pray. But when we pray conscious of God’s presence, then we’re getting close to that idea whereby we can take delight and enjoyment and peace from the prayer that we make. And that’s all important.
Cy Kellett:
We talk about it all the time. It’s almost a cliche to talk about the modern attachment to feelings, but there is a way in which faith here makes up for this addiction to feelings. If I simply have faith that saying the prayer, God hears the prayer. God knows my intention. The faith is adequate. And then by having that faith, I can develop an acquaintance with God. Whereas if I don’t have the faith, then I’m always like, “Am I feeling enough? Am I expressive enough? But faith says, “Stop worrying about all that. Say the prayer.”
Father Hugh Barbour:
Well, that’s why it’s so important to learn forms of prayer and to follow a certain tradition, because that gives us a security that what we’re doing is not something that we’re making up or that we’re stirring up in ourselves. And then, that allows God to act because we’re using the means, which he’s given to us. It’s similar with the sacraments and in all forms of divine worship, it’s much better to conform our hearts to a standard or a rule of prayer, which is already there. We’re not called to be creative, except in the sense that we’re allowing God into our hearts to recreate us, according to his grace, to his image, and to speak in our hearts in ways, which we may not always be aware of until years later.
If you’re having trouble praying with attention, just remember if you’re saying the words carefully and/or if you’re paying attention to the meaning of the words or if you are simply happily aware of God’s presence without paying attention to either the words or the meaning of the words without contradicting them, then you’re praying. But if you want to delight in prayer, which has to do with the emotional part, then we need to be paying attention to the meaning of the words as much as we possibly can. And the presence of God who is the source of the light that we can receive.
But sometimes he shows his face, sometimes he doesn’t. But in the rosary, for example, which is a very good example or praying to the gospels, we have the images before us. We have what would give us the motivation to come closer to God, or have a such a notion of him that might allow us to approach him more intimately.
Cy Kellett:
What were we talking about, again, of? No, I’m just kidding father, I did not get distracted. I was acting out in distraction there for a humorous purpose. It wasn’t even numerous. Father Hugh. Thank you.
Father Hugh Barbour:
What were you saying anyway.
Cy Kellett:
But another form of prayer is a blessing. Could you give us yours before we can?
Father Hugh Barbour:
Certainly I can.
Cy Kellett:
Thank you.
Father Hugh Barbour:
[Latin 00:24:45] Amen.
Cy Kellett:
Thank you, father. Thanks very much.
I really, myself liked what father had to say about the will. I hadn’t thought about that, the will as the capacity to love and what the will loves it’s directed towards. So if you just direct your will towards God, then you can move into that thing that really is what prayer is, loving God, letting God love you. Having a conversation where there’s love between the two of you trusting in that love, living in that love, abiding in that love all those things, that a scripture again and again, reminds us to do in regard to God’s love. I like it. That’s very, very helpful. If I rely on my emotions, and if I even just rely on the fact that I’m going to be attentive and that’s not going to work because my emotions come and go and I am not attentive. I struggle for attentiveness.
So I’m going to focus on my will. To will to love God. There it is. And I’ve started praying. If you want to send us an email, we’d love to get your emails. focus@catholic.com is our email address. focus@catholic.com. If you want to suggest a future episode, we’d love to hear from you also will you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever else you get it, if you subscribe, then you get notified when a new episode is available. And if you watch on YouTube, if you are one of those people right now watching on YouTube, you are seeing these hand motions, see the people listening on the podcast don’t get to see this.
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