How Men Were Created To Pray
In response to a comment, stemming from a recent post: The question was asked, “How were men created to pray?” Please note, this post, as with all my posts, comes from my experiences and may or may not take into account every aspect of the topic. If you have additional thoughts, questions, doubts or replies, please write them in a comment below.
I believe that men were created to pray in a manner that is wild, unrelenting and strong. What do I mean by that? I mean that a man has to pray in the same way that he was created. It doesn’t make sense to do it any other way. We were created, as evidenced in the creation story in The Book of Genesis, to protect, defend and guide. (See Genesis chapter 2, specifically verse 15). Adam was instructed by God to do all these things as the man, the one who has dominion over the earth and the creatures of the land, air and sea. This was no small task. Adam was given a great amount of responsibility. Until the fall, Adam relied totally on God to direct and guide him. We should take this as a guide – that in all things, we should ask God to direct and guide us. After the fall, Adam was distanced from God and he toiled in the fields. This is where we find ourselves today. We toil, in whatever profession we have, and specifically, we toil in a real way when it comes to our conversations with God. Why is this?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 397, explains this clearly. It says, “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command.” We do this daily! No wonder it’s so hard to pray!
If we know that we must trust God and that we must have reckless abandonment to God’s commands, then it will help us to pray. If we know that we were created to protect, defend and guide others, it will help us to pray. Now, some practicals:
- Find what works for you. We’re all different and there are many different ways to pray. Whatever your preference, do it often!
- Remember that prayer is a relationship with God. It takes two; God always does His part. Are you doing yours?
- Make your life a prayer. Every chance you get, talk/listen to God. (Guess what, you’ve got lots of chances to do this during your day!)
- A Man was created with a wildness within his heart – live wildly for God. Your prayer can be wild, rugged and intense.
- Do it often. Did I mention this already?
- Prayer is NOT an emotional thing; emotions may come about during/after prayer, but prayer itself is not emotional. Our prayer is based on our faith – if our faith is founded on the Truth, then it is stable and unchanging and our prayer must follow that model. If our faith isn’t founded on the Truth, then our faith (belief in God and His dominion over us) can change as quickly as the wind.
- Use helpful “tricks” to guide your prayer. One easy one is ACTS – Adoration Contrition Thanksgiving Supplication. Adoration is praising God, adoring Him, fervent worship of Him and His glory. Contrition is asking for forgiveness for our sins; NOT in place of Confession! Thanksgiving is thanking God for the blessings in our lives. Supplication is asking God for the things that we need in life.
I suggest that you read up on men of the Bible, as well as Catholic saints, to get more ideas on how men pray. Find one of these men that you share similarities with and try to emulate him and his style of prayer. These men came before us and succeeded (and sometimes failed) in order to pave the way for us.
Man up!
Encouraging Men to Get Involved
I recently posted “A Fireside Discussion” and received a comment requesting follow-up information about how to encourage men to get involved in the Church. Here you go…
Men won’t get involved in stuff if they don’t see a value. Also, they aren’t likely to attend an event, group or club unless they know someone else, and know them well. (These are all generalizations; please keep this in mind.) Another reason men won’t get involved is if they see the stuff as weak, lame or feminine. Unfortunately, many men see Mass, Church events, groups and retreats through this lens. From my previous post, I mentioned that the Church is “by women, for women”, and this is a big reason why men aren’t involved. Men shouldn’t be forced into praying like women pray, it doesn’t work for us. Men need to pray the way men were created to pray. There’s a difference, and that difference is important. (Maybe more on this in a future post?)
So how do you encourage men to participate? It’s tough to know, exactly. I think that a great way is to get to the heart of a man, that which God put deep inside each man. It’s different from anything else in the world, and hard to explain. See, men want to be rugged and tough. They want to shoot stuff, and fix stuff, and build stuff. They want to protect and defend, they want to love and be loved. They want to feel a purpose and be accomplished. Unfortunately, so many men don’t know how to do any of that stuff. If we want men to participate, we have to encourage them, build them up and GIVE THEM A PERSONAL INVITATION. Personal invitations, from men they trust and respect, might just be the thing to get a man involved at Church. The event better not suck, or be lame, and it better not be associated with ‘sissiness’. If it does, he’ll never come back.
I encourage all the faithful, if they know a man who needs to be involved, to be like St Monica. St Monica, the mother of St Augustine, prayed unceasingly for her son. Augustine was a wandering-soul. He lived a life of incredible sin and his mother still prayed. He became on of the greatest writers of the Church. That man who you know might just be the next St Augustine.
Man up!
"If You're Watching, Take Off Your Skirt"
I heard a great one today. As I was watching the Steelers whoop the Chargers on NBC Sunday Night Football (go Steelers!), the half-time show featured a story about New England Patriot Quarterback Tom Brady barely being touched by Baltimore Raven Linebacker, Terrell Suggs. Suggs was penalized for “roughing the passer”. Watch the play, you decide.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnmGSMccDuU]
I find this penalty completely uncalled for in football and tend to think that quarterbacks need to “man up” and take a hit sometimes. Regardless of where you stand on this penalty, it’s not the point of this post. The point is about the “great one” I heard during the half-time show. It came when Rodney Harrison, retired NFL Safety, former teammate of Brady’s and now NBC football analyst, looked directly into the camera and said, “Tom Brady, if you’re watching this, you need to take off your skirt and take a hit…”! I was thoroughly impressed with this comment! His point was that the game of football is a physical game and that the game was intended to be hard hitting and intense. If a guy can’t take it, he needs to hang up the cleats.
Why do I like this so much? Because it’s time that men start being held accountable for their less-than-manly actions. Granted, Tom Brady was trying to get a penalty called so that his team could gain some extra yardage; fine. One man needs to be able to call out his fellow man when his fellow man isn’t living rightly. It’s not about roughing the passer, I’m talking about this in a much larger context. Men MUST stop “sissifying” this game we call life. Men MUST stand in there, take a hit when necessary and if/when he gets knocked down, he needs to stand up, dust himself off and get back in there. In life, there aren’t any little yellow flags that give us a free ride. In life, it’s up to each one of us to push through, especially in the tough times. Living a TrueManhood life means that, no matter what, you are striving to live out an authentically manly life.
Man up!
A Fireside "Discussion"
Last night I was up in the mountains with a great group of young Catholics. We had a great little (easy) hike into a waterfall, played some horseshoes (in the dark) and had a nice meal cooked by our priest. Somehow [I’m still not certain how exactly] we began discussing the topic of women as altar servers. I have some pretty firm beliefs on the subject, and stemming from those beliefs, we began to discuss the current state of the Church – all from an opinion/experience standpoint.
I firmly believe that the modern, American Catholic Church is, as I’ve put it before, “by women, for women”. Yes, the “leaders” are Bishops, Priests and Deacons, but my point is that the lay-portion of the Church is the “for women” part. This caught some of the young women off guard and immediately put them on the defensive. This was NOT my intention. I intended to explain that the problem is not what the women are doing, or their involvement or their faithfulness or anything of the sort… I intended to explain that in order to fix the problem, men must step up and fulfill the call from God to be protectors, defenders, leaders and TrueMen!
Allow me to explain the statement “by women, for women”. If you look at a typical Catholic parish in America, 80%+ participation and involvement is middle-aged and older women, as well as children. The liturgies are filled with female volunteers, the events are orchestrated and attended by females and the typical style of worship is geared toward female spirituality – rightly so, since 80%+ in attendance are female. The problem with this is multi-faceted: First (and FOREMOST) MEN ARE NOT PRESENT. Men are slacking on their responsibilities and are failing to fulfill their calling as men. Secondly, when men fail to fulfill their role, women tend to step in and attempt to fulfill the men’s role for them. This doesn’t work because the male role(s) are meant to be fulfilled by men, and women simply can’t fulfill (rightly) a man’s role. In the same way, a man cannot successfully fulfill a woman’s role. If this occurs, the relationships and the fulfillment of the responsibilities are skewed, or disordered.
Another part to the problem is the idea of, an oxymoron, “The Fatherless Family”. If men are non-existent in the Church, the Church (which is similar to a family unit) will suffer greatly. This, in my opinion, is the current state of affairs. The solution to these problems is men stepping up, leading and fulfilling their responsibilities. As God commanded Adam in the garden, modern men must “shamar” the garden – they must protect, defend and cultivate their world. My hope is that men begin to learn what it means to live a truly manly lifestyle, within the context of the Life of Faith, as fathers, husbands, sons and friends and that the Church can return to a well-ordered way of operating. More to come on this.
Disclaimer: This is a generalization. There are many men, in many parishes, in many dioceses, that are fulfilling their responsibilities and are living well-ordered lives. There, the Church is strong. There, the Church is thriving.
Man up!
