Sebastian Fricke’s Reviews > Interior Prayer: Carthusian Novice Conferences (Cistercian Studies) by A Carthusian > Status Update

The prayer of petition can lead to an attitude, where it abandons all preoccupations about what to ask and desire, becoming an unconditional 'yes' to the will of God, to ask for nothing, except to grow in love and to refuse nothing, except sin.
This sounds to me as if not to care about the problems around us anymore, but my heart aches when I see the hurt around me, would this be a kind of wildcard prayer?

".., perseveranter" (with perseverance)
By perseverance their will be a gradual harmonization of our own will with what the Lord desires.
"Prayer gives us a better understanding and acceptance of the situation, and makes us see with God's eyes. What begins as a request for healing can gradually become, through patience, a life offered in reparation."

"necessaria ad salutem .."
The ultimate object of our prayer, as of our desire, must always be eternal life, union with God; there can be no other object that is worthy unless it is subordinated to this end, both for ourselves and for others."
Prayer has to always be under the reserve of: "if this is God's will" and the Holy Spirit will help us to ask for the right things.

What makes prayer efficacious?
Tradition says "necessaria ad saltum, per se, pie, perseveranter" (Things necessary for salvation, for oneself, with piety and perseverance)
"Our prayer shares in the mystery of Christ's redemption: a mystery of infinite love, which, however, remains powerless in the face of refusal by a human liberty"
But I should pray all the more fervently for others. Grace and liberty are linked.

Prayer is a work of God
"The world is not a machine .. but a place of life, that has come from a living intelligence .. open to the action of God .."
"Why did God create prayer? In order to bestow the dignity of causality upon his creatures" (Pascal)
"God in his mercy has freely decreed that it is only with the collaboration of humanity that he will accomplish his plan of salvation: and prayer is an example of this."

How does prayer relate to the eternal will of God?
Prayer seems to change the will of God (Lk 11, Ex 32), but "God's designs are eternal" (James 1:17).
God wills not only the effects of the cosmos but also their causes, prayer is in the order of causes to produce effects that are eternally willed.
"mankind, by their prayers, may merit to receive that which almighty God has decided from all eternity to give them"

What is the connection between cosmic determinism and the liberty of God?
Prayer implies a certain vision of the world, where the ordering of the world is not "a rigid succession of phenomena, following on in uniform manner, like the links of a chain", but rather where the ordering is like a living organism with countless interweaving forces contributing to a finality freely willed by God, for the glory of God.

Doubts of modern society whether prayer can change anything besides ourselves, can be understood with the philosophical development. Primitive religions are pantheistic, everything is about the necessities of life, prayer is natural. For the Greeks the world is ruled by necessity, Gods and men are under the weight of destiny. Science brought the idea of determinism, a constant & universal law, that rules the world.

The next section about the prayer of petition, I read and meditated on for quite a while. While a prayer of thanksgiving or pure contemplation are not very controversial, the prayer of petition opens up some theological questions.
1. Can prayer change anything in the exterior ordering of the world?
2. Why is one prayer effective and another not?

What should we pray for
Workers in the harvest
"It is God who gives the increase, God alone"
"the Church relies on .. contemplative men and women ... as the soul of the activity of her apostles"
Don't worry about your life
"We do have needs, but the Father knows them much better than we ourselves do"
The Our Father as basis
"We must ask for the coming of the Kingdom, and that is what we must seek before all else."