“But you when you pray, enter into your closet. And when you have shut the door, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father who sees you in secret shall reward you openly” (Matthew 6:6)
Our Lord Jesus is telling us to find our innermost secret room where we may learn how to pray. We soon realize the melancholy fact that we are not having the same relationship with the heavenly Father that Christ does. That could come later, after we establish a spiritual relation with our Lord, God and Creator whom Jesus is telling us to relate to as we would relate to our own parent.
Our first problem is to find such a closet where we can be all alone with God. Even if it were soundproof, clear of all material distractions other than perhaps a simple table and chair, we no sooner sit down and compose ourselves, stand or kneel (the body’s position is irrelevant at first), then a dozen memories invade our minds; and we realize that our inner closet is filled with more clutter than Fibber McGee’s closet. (For those under fifty, that’s an ancient radio program.) Recall our Lord Jesus Himself, who made the whole barren wilderness a closet, only to be attacked by Satan. However, nothing is hopeless. With God all things are possible, even inner serenity. Besides, we have the instructions of the spiritual ascetics to help and guide us. The monks and nuns almost always begin with the above scriptural verse about the inner closet.
The Art of Prayer opens with the chapter by St. Dimitri of Rostov’s “The Inner Closet of the Heart.” He writes of the two types of prayer, outward worship in the church, and praying in private. They are complementary. The first is done standing, the second in all positions and places. The closet also is of two types—for the first, it’s of stone, wood, concrete or any material, while for the second it’s the heart and mind. St. Dimitri speaks of the attitude we must bring to both forms, and that is love. Always love, a deep affection blended with awe and respect, but always searching for ways to be united with the God in Trinity.
He tells us that prayers are best short; otherwise, we lose concentration, merely babbling words without pondering on what we are saying. But short doesn’t mean infrequent. Tossing spiritual darts at heaven, as some put it. We should pray often, making it a habit of being aware of the presence of the Almighty in all that we do or everywhere we are. It’s alright to lose our train of thought and catch ourselves prattling on while our minds are somewhere else. When it happens, just stop, apologize to the Lord for the distraction and take up your prayer again, this time with concentration. It may seem too difficult, and it might be if indeed we were all alone…but it’s not so.
Another great spiritual teacher, Theophan the Recluse, reminds us that all of us who were baptized and chrismated have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is in all of us, but He is not active in all of us. God has such a great love and respect for us that He never invades our privacy although He is “everywhere present and fills all things.” He waits to be invited. He is ever eager to act in harmony with all the good and worthwhile actions that we do, but it’s up to us to acquire the habit of calling on the Lord frequently. When it happens that we ignore or maybe don’t realize that by virtue of our baptism and chrismation the Lord is beside us and inside us, we go it alone through the experiences that make up our lives. You know what happens to your auto when you leave it in the garage for a month and then turn on the ignition. Nothing. Perhaps not a good analogy, because the Holy Spirit is there within your heart without needing a recharge; however, all too many have never learned to call on the name of the Lord.