Essence of Prayer

by Ruth Burrows

Prayer is a word we take for granted. Ought we to do so? What do we mean by prayer? What does the word mean in the Christian context? Almost always when we talk about prayer we refer to something we do. From that standpoint, questions problems, confusion, discouragement and illusions multiply. For Ruth Burrows it is essential to correct this view.

Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the Divine Self in love. What then is the core of the central message of the revelation of Jesus? It is the unconditional love of God for us, for each one of us. God the unutterable, incomprehensible Mystery, the Reality of all reality, the Life of all Life. And this means that divine Love desires to communicate its Holy Self to us. This is the richness of the vision of a contemplative nun who contradicts the heresy of so much modern writing about the spiritual life--namely that we reach God by running faster. The growing fascination for the public of the contemplative and monastic life is evidence of the profound appeal of this approach. For this there is a real hunger. At its simplest we do no look for success so as to be assured that we do believe. We give ourselves over completely to divine love. Ultimately, we live for God and not for ourselves.

Genres: Catholic, Religion, Spirituality, Prayer, Nonfiction, Theology, Christian

210 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[booklady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful! My Benedictine Spiritual Director recommended this Carmelite book on prayer to me, which he said he would read. What drew me to it was words like these:

'Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. It is not primarily something we are doing to God, something we are giving to God but what God is doing for us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the divine Self in love.'

and,

'Our troubles and distress arise from our instinctive assumption that the method is the prayer, and so we gauge the genuineness and success of the prayer by how well the method has worked.'

Sr. Burrows is telling us that for all our work, our effort ‘to pray’, we are about as effective as little children digging for hidden treasure. It certainly keeps us busy and we may indeed feel good about our efforts, but our feelings have little to do with results. Instead we need to be Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to His every word. Or if we find our self by Life’s necessity, a Martha, then still we must have a Mary heart, because prayer is something God does in us. She does not discourage any method which we find comfortable, so long as we realize it is not the method which is the prayer. We must know Who we address, looking and listening for Him. In turn then, He is praying in us always. She does greatly encourage study of Sacred Scripture.

The necessary thing about prayer is the faithful commitment of the time, day in and day out. And the trust that it is God’s action through us which accomplishes the good. We need to show up with faith and receptivity.

There are chapters on the best-known Carmelite saints (Teresa, John of the Cross, Therese-2 and Elizabeth of the Trinity) which are short and extremely insightful. Significant for me was her stress that the significance of the cross is not so much the suffering as obedience; doing the Father’s Will whether easy or hard. Then even death can be transformed.

It is one of the most helpful as well as upbeat books I have read in a long time. It really helped me and I needed it this point in my life. Now may I just follow what I have learned from it!

MOST highly recommended!


June 14, 2019: After letting this book languish for quite a while, I recently picked it back up and have been racing through it, though it is usually the sort of book I would linger over. That is how I envisioned reading it in the beginning. However, something clicked and I could not put it down. If you think you know the big Carmelite saints, wait til you read her chapters on them, but be prepared for new insights. It felt like a very good lecture at one of our conferences, except that you could pause, reflect, reread, highlight and did not have to worry about missing anything. Still reading... 70% done.

January 22, 2019: My Benedictine Spiritual Director recommended this Carmelite book on prayer to me. It is excellent! I started it awhile back but set it aside for a long time. Just picked it up again today, May 30, 2019.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be amazing and an inspiration. It's what I always hope for when I open a book, fiction or non-fiction: to discover a new world, to be challenged, maybe even to be changed in some way.

Burrows was a Carmelite nun. The Carmelites are an enclosed order. The sisters have very little contact with the outside world. The community is dedicated to prayer but it also emphasizes the importance of community, of the ways in which we learn about ourselves and simultaneously give service to others. St. Teresa of Avila praised friendship as a way to God. So the Carmelites seek a balance--periods of silent prayer with periods of social interaction. In addition, the communities support themselves so the sisters engage in hard work as well.

What was so powerful for me in this reading was the emphasis on how little we do in prayer; the "doer" is all God and we only receive. This is, of course, much more difficult than it sounds, to let go of everything, any striving, and "doing," as well as any pride in our "spiritual" life or practice. Challenging for me anyway. I'm very outcome oriented and always looking for ways to improve myself, to achieve more, be more productive--and this includes prayer. Witness the fact that I bought this book which I thought would be a "how to" about praying--although in some way, it is. What I learned is it's about emptying, letting go of ideas about myself, what I'm supposed to be doing, who I am.

Her passion shines forth throughout the book: for her order, for the saints who founded the order, for God. I felt energized just being in her presence through the pages of this work.

Obviously, this book is aimed for Catholics. There is a great emphasis on Jesus so I don't think non-Christians would be interested. As a Catholic (with many reservations about the church and struggles about whether to remain within it) I felt I was confronted with my own ego and ideas "about" God and prayer and my relationship with them.

I've read in several reviews that it's helpful to be familiar with the work of St. Theresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, and St. John of the Cross but I imagine that the context of the quotes given make clear enough their relevance. On the other hand, I am familiar with these writings so I can't actually know if this is true.

A beautiful and inspiring book not only about prayer but about how to live a life within it.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm taking this one slow and savoring it. It is opening up for me new ways of looking at prayer. I especially liked the chapters on Elizabeth of the Trinity and on Teresa of Avila, as well as some of the early chapters.

...

Now that I have finished, I am somewhat amazed at how relevant the last two chapters of this book are to my most recent crisis of faith. "A genuine life of faith of necessity destroys illusion. It needs none. It seeks the truth with passion." Ruth Burows, a Carmelite nun, presents the Christian vocation as essentially synonymous with the vocation of being human. To be a Christian is to become more fully human, more fully ourselves. Christians look to Jesus for our vision of God, ourselves, others and the world around us and for the fully human expression of God's God-ness. Jesus accepted the human lot, with all of its limitations, including the finiteness of death. Rather than running from reality we can choose to accept reality, as Jesus did, to love things the way they are because this is precisely what "opens ourselves and the world to the purifying, transforming, beatifying love of God."

Burrows asserts that to believe in Jesus Christ means to affirm his view that "the REALITY, the MYSTERY in which we are immersed ... loves us. ... If we truly believe it then we hold onto the fact that we are utterly safe and secure in this love. ... We cannot lose it, cannot escape its unfolding: it is there for us; one with our existence. ... We cannot imagine such love for it exceeds everything the human mind and heart can grasp; but we can get faint intimations of it in our experience of human love. It is not meaningless to us. Jesus gave the name of Father to this love, and he strains to get us to trust this Father utterly. ... Faith means living all the time by this truth, it means a constant surrender to it, a desire to receive it. And this is the mystical life: the human person becoming more and more receptive to the inflowing of divine love, which, as it enters, of necessity purifies and transforms."

"Is such faith easy? Of course not, and Jesus knew it was not. The Letter of the Hebrews calls Jesus our pioneer in faith and shows Jesus himself struggling with the opacity of experienced Reality and hiddenness of God."

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a powerful and very helpful book. If you feel like you “pray wrong” or don’t have fruitful prayer, this book will help you—not because it’s a DIY prayer guide, but because it teaches you that prayer is so different from the way we tend to think of it. It’s a well written and very interesting book.

[Brother Gregory Rice, SOLT · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's difficult to move on to something else. Fed my heart and soul.

[Laura Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life and I think I'll be unpacking it the rest of my days. My prayer life has been inverted and I am more trusting of and in love with Jesus. I'm so glad my spiritual director told me to read this or I just wouldn't have because of all the hype it gets. Thank you Jesus

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible book - it’s not just about the Essence of Prayer, but also the essence of the Christian life, whether lived within an enclosed convent or outside it. A book to be treasured.

[Gab Nug · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider this a must-read for anyone seeking to deepen his or her spiritual life, especially one who may be interested in particularly Carmelite spirituality.
Sr. Ruth Burrows presents her reader with a wake up call as to the simple yet profound reality of prayer and what that both entails for and demands of the pray-er, so to speak.
She has a writing style that is both accessible and engaging, which makes this an easy yet enriching read.
Highly recommend.

[Craig Bergland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Ruth Burrows' books in the 1990s while I was an Oblate of a Religious Order and liked them a lot, so I decided to revisit her writing with Essence of Prayer. I would have to say, that although my spiritual position has moved quite a bit since the 1990s, that I enjoyed this book very much. I don't know that I agreed with everything she said, or maybe it's that I now question the benefits of some aspects of the cloistered life, but I can say that I enjoyed this book greatly and even agreed with the vast majority of it. I found myself asking if I hadn't evolved as much as I thought I had or if the author has changed as well. In any event, I recommend this book if you are a person interested in contemplative prayer or Carmelite spirituality. The only criticism I really have is that the font in the Kindle edition is horrible and resembles the font used by Tan books in the 1950s and 1960s. For me, it impacted the readability of the book at times as my eyes became fatigued.

[Max · Rating 1 out of 5]

Profoundly embarrassing.

I got this book because Sister Wendy recommended it in the foreword. I'm not a Christian, but I liked Sister Wendy's book on prayer, so I gave this book a chance. I thought that even if I didn't agree with every "jot and tittle" of Roman Catholicism, contemplative practice in that tradition might have something to show me.

I was wrong.

Here's Ruth Burrows convicted in her own words, IMO, of having a completely skill-less, outcome-less, fantasy-based, self deceptive spiritual life:

"(...) we are trying to do is to help ourselves to be present for God to love us. We are not trying to achieve anything.

(...) What is happening is secret not only to others but to ourselves as well. Only One is going to get any satisfaction out of it and his reward will be for something that costs us. Our satisfaction is solely that of giving God joy.

(...) God is the doer and giver. Christian prayer is nothing other than being present to God so that God can give to us."

And the three worst quotes:

"Often it may seem as if we only act `as if', so unaffected are our hearts, perhaps even mocking us: `where is your God!' It is this acting out `as if' that is true faith

(...) What I actually experience on my conscious level is quite unimportant. In fact I experience nothing except my poor, distracted self. It is a case of blind trust;

(...) I go on refusing to take my head off God's breast (I'm thinking of Rembrandt's painting of the Prodigal Son with his head pressed to his father's heart), and I believe that this obstinate, blind trust is what Our Lord wants more than anything else."

So basically, Ruth Burrows' entire spirituality is just a matter of thinking she's doing something useful by clinging tenaciously to old beliefs, because she was brought up in pre-Vatican-II times and had no other outlet for her spiritual inclinations.

This book was much, much worse than I could have imagined. Lots of indictments of worthless humanity and exhortations to not try to understand anything. I guess the Catholic church really is as bad as the modern world says it is, or at least her version is.

[djt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book selection for a group discussion. While it's not a book I would have read otherwise, I did find it to be informative. The writer, Ruth Burrows, a Carmelite nun, gives very detailed information on several Carmelite saints. In this, there is a sense of how they were drawn to Carmelite spirituality and the Carmelite charism, which is steeped in silence, solitude, and deep, personal inner prayer. The cloistered nuns of Carmel pray daily and continually for the world at large, and for so many individual intentions, for themselves, friends, family. This is the basis of the Carmelite Order, including the First Order of clergy; the Second Order of Religious; and the Third Order of laity. Not all Carmelites are cloistered and do very significant, important work in the world in matters of science, education, medicine. While those who remain cloistered don't have regular communication outside of the monasteries and convents, in addition to the most significant contribution of prayer, they also contribute in these other areas as they are able to do given their solitude. Again, I found this to be informative, however, the last several chapters, in particular, are directed mainly toward the Religious Order of Sisters/Nuns, so of course a little difficult to relate this to the prayer life of a lay person. However, still, there were many lines of thought presented within these chapters that did pertain easily to both. After all...people are people, and those who have a very active prayer life, or any person, for that matter, definitely would benefit from reading this book.

[Emily Ignatius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone gave me this book as a confirmation gift almost three years ago. When I first tried to read it, I didn’t understand it and it made me mad. For some reason I hung onto it and gave it a second chance. I’m so glad that I did!

Burrows presents a wonderful overview of Carmelite spirituality and how it is applicable to everyday life outside the monastery. The take home message is that there’s no way to be ‘good’ at prayer since it is essentially emptying oneself of one’s ego and allowing God to do the work, even if the subjective experience is dry, distracted, and frustrating. She stresses the importance of objective truth in reality over one’s petty self delusions of being in control.
It’s not easy to let go of the ego. However, Burrows does not recommend harsh self denial or asceticism, but rather to abandon oneself to God’s infinite love through Christ, especially in the sacraments and Gospels.
Burrows also has a keen sense of human nature, particularly the propensity to dwell upon one’s failings. But through these failings, God helps one embrace one’s absolute poverty/powerlessness and come before Him empty be filled by His infinite love, which spills over in abundance to others.

[Eric Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of various reflections on prayer and religious life by a Carmelite nun (Roman Catholic Christian). Burrows' main thesis for the prayer life is to relax: Christianity spirituality is not about working to earn from God, but to receive from God. Although she stresses the need to relax, she at the same time stresses the need to maintain the spiritual life of set apart prayer / quiet time (one hour daily) and Bible reading (one fine example being the readings in the daily Missal). Apart from this general thesis the chapters are widely scattered on various subjects, although they all contain Burrows' direct and easy to read writing style. The first part of the book is focused more on the act of prayer itself, while the second part is focused on the example of saints in the Carmelite tradition and the challenges of religious life. A bit scattered in its various topics, but a rich read on the spiritual life.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dense but rich text teaching a Carmelite perspective on prayer. Most striking teachings for me included that prayer is "not a technique but a relationship" and that to measure "how well we pray" is a fallacy (I hear her indicting Centering Prayer, here). All that is required is to sit and "let God love you." Easier said than done, of course, but point taken. Also, the Carmelite teaching that: "You. Are. Poor." (punctuation mine). She includes chapters on the lives and teachings of Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Elisabeth of Dijon, and John of the Cross, many written as if addressed to Carmelite communities but still relevant to anyone trying to learn to pray or live "facing Jesus."

[Anita]

At the beginning of reading Chapter 5 I realized that like the previous chapters it said the same thing. In this book we are told the essence of prayer over and over again. In Chapter 1 it says "Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. It is not primarily something we are doing to God... but what God is doing for us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the divine Self in love." Then in each chapter we get to know that this means we have to let go of our own idea of what that means and that is the hard part, because we want so much to control it all. I've had enough for the time being.

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a series of reflections on prayer. It draws from the well of Carmelite spirituality, but it's broadly applicable to people in all walks of life who want to delve deeper into their relationship with God.

[Cala Meyers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful description of our life of prayer and intimate relationship with God.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. A great collection of essays, down to earth, both practical and wise.

[Charles Coyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb

[Kaleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gr8 book. The Catholics have done it again

[Penot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

Ce livre nous confronte au cœur de la vie chrétienne de prière: pauvreté confiante de l’âme qui se découvre aimée et s’expose à cet Amour.

[Sophie Zell · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I’ve actually been reading this book for like a month but I didn’t update Goodreads until a few days ago. Obviously I’m a HUGE Sr. Ruth girl so I was eating this up from the start. Ever thought you suck at prayer? This is worth a read because the truth is, your nothingness or seemingly empty efforts are perfect and pleasing to the Lord!!! Sr. Ruth dives into what exactly prayer is and explains the movement of God’s heart to our own when we open ourselves to Him!!!

PS this book is basically about Carmel so if you’re discerning or just curious on how the structure of Carmel facilitates a stark encounter with our human condition I’d recommend. I personally subbed Carmel for “being a FOCUS missionary” and it did the trick and revealed my poverty to me real quick :)

[Emily Baugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a quick read, yet full of truth and wisdom on prayer from a Carmelite perspective.

[Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on prayer. My takeaway from the book is that life is not for just staying alive, but for prayer. Which is firstly loving and being loved by God, and consequently and inevitably loving and being loved by neighbor.
Prayer - defined as being receptive to God’s love - is always successful because God is unconditional love. The best thing we can do is to commit to daily prayer in which we open our hearts to being loved by God!

[Harry Allagree · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want a no-nonsense, no frills, very readable explanation of what prayer is all about & how it relates to the life of a follower of Jesus Christ, I highly recommend this book. Ruth Burrows has been a Carmelite in Quidenham, England, for over 50 years. The simple wisdom of her half a dozen or so earlier books is continued in this work: "...prayer", she says, "is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us...what God is doing for us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the divine Self in love." It involves living very normally, with who we are & with what we have, allowing ourselves to be loved, "to be there for Love to love us", and letting that love overflow to the benefit of others in our life.

[Lisa Hincapie]

This is a wonderful book on surrendering ourselves to Our Lord in prayer. As a Camelite contemplative nun, Sr. Burrows shows what God is doing for us in prayer. She is very candid at times but always to help us understand how much God loves us and wants a relationship with us.

[Ann Yeong · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest, unsentimental look at prayer and the spiritual life. This will be a treasure for one who is ready to be confronted with the unvarnished, startling yet frightening truth about what it means to pray and to be in personal relationship with God.

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful-she speaks in a language I can understand! Great book to read in small doses.

[Chip · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books on prayer available.