At the diocesan celebration in August, I found on the table of the Catholic Bookshop a new release that turned out to be an older book—one that has long been tried and trusted. The book is Time for God, a small guide to the life of prayer, written by Father Jacques Philippe as early as 1992. It has been translated into Finnish by Katri Tenhunen, the manager of the bookshop. Katri told me that she had been encouraged to translate the book by our bishop, Raimo Goyarrola.
And so, on a rainy day in November, I had the opportunity to sit in Bishop Raimo’s reception room and listen. He said that he had first become acquainted with the book about ten years ago. Father Jacques’s way of writing with very concrete examples delighted him. How moving the text is—and as it brings to mind Spain’s great saints, Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, it also recalls a saint who is especially dear to the bishop: Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. What Father Jacques writes also reflects Saint Josemaría’s understanding of prayer. Our bishop refers to Saint Josemaría’s homily in the book Friends of God.
The bishop himself always begins and ends his day with prayer. Like Saint Teresa, Saint Josemaría urged Christians to set aside at least fifteen minutes a day for prayer. In Time for God we receive wise guidance and reminders that prayer is ultimately always God’s grace. It is not primarily about what we do, but about what God does in us when we humble ourselves to receive his help. God is always the one who takes the initiative. This is why prayer is ultimately more about listening to God than about our own speaking. Our path of prayer often begins with our pleas for help, but it leads toward listening, wonder, and the worship of God. We are called to grow in our life of prayer. Bishop Raimo hopes that readers of the book will be encouraged to cultivate a regular life of prayer.
With a Carmelite spirit
The author of Time for God, Father Jacques Philippe, has belonged since the 1980s to the Community of the Beatitudes (La Communauté des Béatitudes). The community emerged in the soil of the Second Vatican Council and has its roots in an initiative in 1974, inspired by a French couple, to live a life in community. Today there are communities in which brothers, sisters, families, and priests live together in more than twenty countries on every continent.
Father Jacques is well known as a spiritual director, and his books on the spiritual life and on prayer have been translated into more than twenty languages—now, at last, also into Finnish. On the pages of the book one can sense how Carmelite spirituality inspires the author’s own spiritual life. Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, and Thérèse of the Child Jesus appear frequently.
I asked Heidi Tuorila-Kahanpää OCDS, a Carmelite lay member, whether she knew the book. And indeed she did: already in the early 2000s she had translated an abridged version from the German translation for use among Finnish Carmelite lay members. In the abridgement, the book’s central contents are gathered in a nutshell, helping those who are becoming acquainted with Carmelite lay life to find the humble attitude needed for the life of prayer. In this way, Father Jacques can teach the basic foundations of prayer to anyone who wishes to deepen their prayer life. Father Jacques Philippe writes of his motivation: “I only hope that this little book may help someone to set out on the path of prayer or find encouragement to persevere on it. That is the only purpose for which I wrote it” (p. 138).
Heidi says that from an early stage she has felt a calling to prayer—a calling she lives out through her commitment as a Carmelite lay member, being enriched inwardly by it. Father Philippe’s guide to prayer provides a solid foundation for anyone considering Carmelite lay life, Heidi notes.
Prayer at the heart of faith
The question of what prayer is, and the longing to find the path of prayer, have been guiding stars for me on my way into the Catholic Church. I was deeply struck when I took up Marjatta Jaanu-Schröder’s books Roses for the Virgin Mary and The Secret of Prayer. From their pages I came to understand that the life of faith, from beginning to end, is first and foremost prayer—and that its most beautiful prayer is the Eucharistic Prayer, together with the whole great Catholic Church.
During the introductory courses in 2014, Father Joosef Dang awakened me to understand how the regular praying of the Liturgy of the Hours can become sweet daily encounters with the One we love most, Jesus. For the Church’s priests this prayer is obligatory. Father Joosef said that, for priests, giving up the regular praying of the Liturgy of the Hours is a grave sin. In keeping with the Second Vatican Council, the Liturgy of the Hours—especially Lauds and Vespers—is also recommended to the laity, even though it is not binding. For me, it has become a daily prayer.
The Pope of prayer
More recently, I have been pleasantly surprised by Pope Pius XII’s exhortations to pray. Pope Pius XII is remembered especially for the difficult years of his pontificate, during which the Second World War took place (pontificate 1939–58). Carmen Hernández (1930–2016), who together with Kiko Argüello began the Neocatechumenal Way, wrote her theological study on Pope Pius XII’s understanding of prayer. She quotes many of his statements, which consistently begin from the primacy of prayer. One of the most striking quotations is Pope Pius XII’s words: “Let us pray, let us pray, let us pray: prayer is the key to God’s treasures; it is a weapon in the struggle and a victory in every battle between good and evil.”
Listening to God and loving Jesus Christ deeply in Sacred Scripture, in Tradition, and in the living people around her, Carmen herself also grew into a person of prayer. Her diaries reveal that she prayed without ceasing. The gift of unceasing prayer—how one would wish it for everyone.
Today, Father Jacques Philippe’s book is also a treasure for me. It reminds us that prayer is not only words learned by heart or phrases recited together; at its deepest, it is the soul’s conversation with God. In that conversation, the one who prays grows into a listener, while remembering that God is always the One who listened first. For God truly hears the prayer of the poor and responds to every cry for help. In the end, one’s own voice grows quiet, and God’s love is increasingly able to guide each step of the one who prays along the path of life.
Whatever we do today, it is always good to begin the day by praying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will show us the right path and how we are to walk it. In this way it is always fitting to return to the stream of the synodal prayer:
We stand before you, Holy Spirit,
as we gather together in your name.
With you alone to guide us,
make yourself at home in our hearts.
Teach us the way we must go
and how we are to pursue it.
We are weak and sinful;
do not let us promote disorder.
Do not let ignorance lead us down the wrong path
nor partiality influence our actions.
Let us find in you our unity
so that we may journey together to eternal life
and not stray from the way of truth
and what is right.
All this we ask of you,
who are at work in every place and time,
in the communion of the Father and the Son,
forever and ever.
Amen.
(Prayer for the Synod 2021–2024)
Eeva Vitikka-Annala