Personal prayer and communal prayer. Sometimes we ask, which is more important? To begin with, it’s very much the wrong question. First, we affirm: Prayer is important! Secondly, we point out that personal prayer and communal prayer are interrelated and nurture and sustain one and the other.
What is prayer all about? The words of Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, that appear frequently in the here and there of devotional pamphlets and mystical writings are simply, “prayer is an intimate conversation with a best friend”. Without a doubt, the words sound just about right. But, there are three words that need to be fleshed out a bit: Conversation, intimate, and friend.
Beginning with the word “friend”. This is a heavyweight word. A best friend is not anyone. A best friend is someone we choose, someone we know and knows us very well, it is someone that we trust. (from your perspective, what else can be said of a best friend?)
Now, the important point here is that it is Our Lord that chooses us, wants to let us know who he is and he is the one who has placed his trust in us, first! This is actually quite moving, Our Lord has chosen us, in a personal way, to be his best friends. We can all delight in how much we are cherished. He wants us to be his best friends! In the most intimate way, he wants to let us get to know him, and he already trusts us.
Because he has declared himself a best friend, we can approach him as such. This is where the conversation starts; we can tell him anything. The best friend that he is, he will be attentive to all that we share with him – even the stuff we might not be able to share with anyone. At the same time, without the Lord pressuring us, even as we are able to share everything with him – it is also good to give him a chance to share with us. What “secrets” might the Lord want to share with us, his best friends? This is what personal prayer is about, an intimate sharing between best friends.
Then, communal prayer happens, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist. All the best friends of the Lord come together – it’s a family affair; it’s community. What is of each is gathered and is offered in a prayerful act of petition, of praise, and of communion. It is all of us together, gathered around the presence of the Lord, and he explains the stories of our faith, the sacred texts. It is he, who breaks the bread and renews the eternity of his love. The personal (and never private) comes alive in the communal and the communal in the personal. It becomes obvious, divisions are not part of being family and community, they are not appropriate either between personal and communal prayer.
We have celebrated the Feast of All Saints, then the memorial for all our departed, and soon it will be Thanksgiving. The eternal and the temporal, what is far and near, all are united through the call that makes us all the best friends of the Lord.
Father Francisco Gómez, S.T.