1. Persistent prayer
2. Wholeness in prayer
3. Waiting and trusting prayer
4. Prayer of simplicity

The spiritual life is empowered by the Holy Spirit.  This is promised us when we ask for it.  Such a request is granted without fail.  "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Luke 11:13).

Many ask the question, "Why despite our prayers do we experience so little of the richness of God's Spirit in our life and even in the church?"  That can have many reasons.  One of the reasons might be that  for a long time we have not probed the possibilities of persistent prayer deeply enough.  Prayer that penetrates and integrates all dimensions of our being is meditative prayer.  (This prayer, however, is not regularly used.)  Did not Jesus have such a prayer in mind in his parables about persistent prayer?  Meditative prayer is intense, all embracing, full of confidence becoming more and more direct.  When we look at the particulars, such prayer opens us more and more to the source of strength from which we daily feed our spiritual life.

In the parable of the persistent widow Jesus makes it absolutely clear in which resolute ways a person can and should pray (Luke 18:1-8a).   That is precisely what we practice in meditation: to enter completely into something and let it fill us.  The most important characteristics of meditation is to go over the material repetitively and deepen it instead of proceeding linearly. (see "practicing pausing and pondering" and "practice looking at the essential".)  No one experiences convincing and sustained inner transformation through prayer and meditation who does not go this way of faithfulness and persistence over many years.  One does not live only in dimensions of time, but also in dimensions of breadth and depth.  Only that which truly permeates will be able to form a person from within (see "importance of pondering".).  Only the "good soil" which has depth brings forth fruit (Matt. 13:8).  That is true for opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit as well.

Whoever meditates on Barlach's sculpture, Russian Beggar,  and identifies with the posture of the woman, very likely will know more about wholeness in prayer than they did before. The woman in this sculpture not only prays, indeed, she becomes prayer altogether.

We have considered various prayer postures and have sought to listen to their particular language.  Just as an activity can become a "action as prayer" so a posture, a gesture of  life, can become a vehicle of prayer even representative of it.  Roger Schutz (founder of the  Community of Taizé  in France) counseled his brothers that when they felt inwardly dry and empty they should "present their body" by simply kneeling before God.

Therefore the "body position as prayer" offered this week should show the way to wholeness in praying, to praying that happens "with body and soul".

God took on human form.  That is the Christian message.  God shapes us and permeates us completely including our body.  What we receive with our body we receive as a total person, and that shapes us more deeply than that which we grasp only mentally. Especially for "heady" people exercises which involve the body can be helpful in order to live in wholeness as a disciple of Christ.  Already in the time of Württemberg pietism (1782) the phrase, "Embodiment is the goal of God's way" was coined.

One form of praying with body and soul that we all trust is singing.  In singing we take up the message of God with our body, with our vocal chords and the resonance of our chest.  Singing is a prayer of the body.  And what liberating effects singing can have!  The same can be said for the experience people have had over the years in kneeling during prayer, for that is in the same category as singing.  A person is body, soul and spirit all in one also when praying.

In meditation we never know beforehand what will happen.  Everyday we exercise again and simply wait: wait for what happens, wait for when something happens, wait for how something happens.  Such waiting is fulfilled in the secure and trusting certainty that something important will happen.

In this connection I frequently have in mind the disciples waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit after the Ascension of Jesus.  Their task consisted only in preparing for the Spirit of God by waiting and praying without knowing when or how this promise would be fulfilled Acts 1:7 ff.).  It was a praying which reached out in trust and hope for the promise.  And the prayer was fulfilled.

One of the great mysteries around which the thinking and meditating of Meister Eckhart  revolved was that in God everything which we perceive as "diverse" is "one".  Because God is so simple, that is so completly "all in one" a person will also become more simple the closer she or he comes to God.

That affects our praying as well.  It may happen that after a long period of intensive meditating using material from which we regularly have had gratifying experiences, that one day we feel we don't need as much material as before. Perhaps we simply want to be quiet before God without using any "helps" at all.  When we experience this, it may be that God is calling us to a new way of praying; and then it is important that we follow this call.  That means we have the freedom to reduce the materials offered for praying to the level that is good for us.

But who can say that they are called to this form of prayer?  Let me suggest three possible experiences that could point to that:

• if after a long period of meditation we manage with very little material, perhaps with  only a single word or an inner image,
• if despite the meager materials and hardly recognizable "results" or experience, prayer  time passes more quickly than we had anticipated,
• If after such prayer we personally feel that something important has happened without being able to understand or name it,

 then perhaps the time has come that God is calling us  to the prayer of simplicity.
Furthermore, when we reduce the amount of material to a minimum or are "simply" in the presence of God without any material, we will not miss anything.  On the contrary!  It is precisely here that intensive spiritual growth takes place, but so hidden that it alludes our understanding.  On this basis the prayer of simplicity will be suggested several times in the following week.

The focus of the twelfth week is on opening ourselves to the fullness of the Holy Spirit by praying persistently, with body awareness and with trust and simplicity.