The Spirit Helps Us in our Weakness

The Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express (Rom. 8: 26).

Recently, I agreed to begin praying for a priest, but immediately found myself in a dilemma.  My  prayer is most often unstructured and unfocused, often consisting more in silence and listening than in "saying" anything.  Now, however, I felt that I had a "job" to do, and I was floundering.  I thought maybe I needed to be intentional in how and what I was praying --- but at the same time, I felt that my patron (St. Therese, who always prayed for priests) was probably very ashamed of me and embarrassed by my stabs at prayer in this regard.

Most people would probably say a Rosary for a special intention, but for years I have spectacularly failed at saying the Rosary.  During the day, or when I am walking, I probably say the equivalent of a Rosary, but put a Rosary in my hands, and I become a fool.  I get tangled up in the prayers, since I keep trying to contemplate and forget the words --- or I get stuck on an Our Father and start thinking about all the places "Thy Kingdom come" need so desperately.  

Finally, after a week of trying to do my "job" without knowing even where or how to begin, I went to Adoration.  How do you want me to pray? I cried.  I don't know how to pray for ……  The answer came in a short time: I want you to suffer with him!  This was not the answer I expected, but I immediately understood it.  I was not to undertake any kind of special "suffering" or penance, but I was not to abandon him in his suffering.  If I decided to back off praying/ standing with him, then I would be leaving him to suffer his burdens alone.  For me, this was the perfect answer: I knew that I could not give up praying just because I thought I didn't know how to do it.

In the weeks following, I began to see and understand things that were new to me: Mary standing helplessly at the foot of the cross, refusing to leave her Son in His suffering; the loneliness and lack of intimacy in priestly life; the fact that there is no one to share in the small and large moments.  I began to understand the fact that if even one person understands our suffering, it begins to be bearable.  That is why therapy is so effective -- someone else knows what we are going through! Even though I don't really know what my priest is suffering at any given moment, I can still "stand there" in silence.

I understood also that as Mary stood with Jesus, she was offering His suffering to the Father in submission, not understanding, but obeying.  She was not necessarily "saying any prayers," but standing there yielding to God's will. I finally began to understand that I did not have to twist myself into new forms of praying, but that I could continue to pray as I always had -- more waiting and receiving than "doing."  

And once I began to open myself to what God wanted to give me in prayer for my priest, I was amazed at what began to unfold.  I was beginning to understand that "The Spirit helps us in our weakness," that we truly do not know how to pray, but that the Spirit always gives us what He asks us to do.  In the next entry, I will unfold the things the Holy Spirit began to show me about how to pray in this regard.