{"id":17119,"date":"2023-04-05T14:37:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T19:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transformingcenter.org\/?p=17119"},"modified":"2023-04-06T21:24:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T02:24:46","slug":"how-shall-i-pray-spiritual-guidance-for-when-words-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transformingcenter.org\/2023\/04\/how-shall-i-pray-spiritual-guidance-for-when-words-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"How Shall I Pray? Spiritual Guidance For When Words Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When words fail, let silence be your prayer. Lean into the ministry of the Holy Spirit, trusting that even when we don\u2019t know how to pray, prayer is happening. The Holy Spirit knows how to pray and is constantly interceding for us before the throne of grace with groans too deep for words. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>When tears come, even when they take you by surprise, let them come and count them as prayers.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Have the courage to mourn.<\/strong>\u00a0 Jesus says, &#8220;Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.\u201d What are we missing out on when we refuse to mourn but distract ourselves instead?\u00a0 Cynthia Bourgeault points out that &#8220;when we mourn we are in a state of free fall, our heart reaching out toward what we have seemingly lost but cannot help loving anyway\u2026mourning is a brutal form of emptiness but if we can remain open we can discover that to mourn is touch directly the substance of divine compassion.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span>Let\u2019s try and keep our hearts open, even when everything in us wants to shut down. Do not underestimate the impact the images and the reality of unchecked violence is having on all our psyches. We are all managing anxiety that comes from a heightened sense of vulnerability and this needs to be mourned.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Practice lament\u2014alone and with others.<\/strong> Cultivate lament as a place where you can express your grief and despair directly to God, and also where you can be prophetic in proclaiming, \u201cThis is not right!&#8221;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>When you struggle to find words, consider relying on the words of others\u2014from the prayers of Scripture, traditional liturgical prayers of the Church, as well as contemporary prayers.<\/strong>\u00a0 Let these prayers express the things you cannot find words to express.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Speaking of which, I offer this prayer from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.everymomentholy.com\/content\"><em>Every Moment Holy<\/em><\/a> as a prayer that might gives us words to express at least something of what is on our hearts today<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>O God our Rock,<\/i><br \/>\n<b><i>hold us in this chaos.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>O Christ our King,<br \/>\n<\/i><b><i>calm us in this storm.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>O Holy Spirit,<\/i><br \/>\n<b><i>Intercede for us.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><i>Be merciful,<\/i><\/b><br \/>\n<b><i>most merciful God!\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>O God our Rock,<\/i><br \/>\n<b><i>hold us in the chaos<\/i><\/b><br \/>\n<b><i>of this hard hour.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>O Christ our King,<\/i><br \/>\n<b><i>calm us in the storm<\/i><\/b><br \/>\n<b><i>of our distress.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>O Holy Spirit,<\/i><br \/>\n<b><i>Intervene<\/i><\/b><br \/>\n<b><i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and intercede<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><i>We need you now,<\/i><\/b><br \/>\n<b><i>most merciful God!\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When words fail, let silence be your prayer. Lean into the ministry of the Holy Spirit, trusting that even when we don\u2019t know how to pray, prayer is happening. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-words"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.2 (Yoast SEO v26.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Shall I Pray? 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