Where do we pray?

Jesus taught that we should pray “in secret.” Some may say that means pray in congenial places like the setting above. But St. Cyprian suggests that space may be wherever you find yourself. God is everywhere.

“The eyes of the Lord are everywhere.” So God is ready everywhere to engage us. Praying in secret testifies to the “everywhereness” of God. We can’t limit prayer to one place or time or some favored words..

What about the prayers we pray? Have they just become memorized words? “God hears our heart, not our words,” Cyprian says. God heard Anna who prayed for a child and the publican who prayed for forgiveness. They were not praying words, they prayed from the heart.

Prayer begins, not with yourself, the way the self-absorbed Pharisee prayed in the parable Jesus taught. Prayer begins with God. You are in the presence of God, everywhere. Be like the publican who knew he was a creature of the earth, waiting to the raised up. 

“Rejoice in the Lord” our psalm at Mass says. You are God’s children who call out “Abba.” And God hears us.

When we pray, we never pray only for ourselves. Here’s St. Cyprian: “Above all, the Teacher of peace and Master of unity did not want prayer to be made singly and privately, so that whoever prayed would pray for himself alone. We do not say My Father, who art in heaven or Give me this day my daily bread; nor does each one ask that only his own debt should be forgiven him; nor does he request for himself alone that he may not be led into temptation but delivered from evil. Our prayer is public and common, and when we pray, we pray not for one person but for the whole people, since we, the whole people, are one.”