Prayer Therapy ?
Rev. Fr. Paul Lelen Haokip *
Prayer service at Easter Sunday at MBC Church, Chingmeirong, Imphal in April 2012 :: Pix - Bunti Phurailatpam
When things go wrong, you hit to psychologists, psalmists, fortunetellers, visionaries, black magic power etc. Some of them give temporary or psychological relief to the stress and tension mounted already but never lasting solution.
Therapy is 'the treatment of disease or disorders, as by some remedial, rehabilitating, or curative processes'. When all these fail you without any mercy, you begin to visit temples, mosques, gurudwaras, churches and the like. Your worship is an external sign of your inward disposition. Worship leads to prayer. This worship can be directed towards God, Man, Money, Gold, Pleasure, Good Name and the like. You may be worshipping even your own ideas, dreams.
Read the scriptures of the religions and carry them in your heart so that in times of troubles, the scriptures may carry you. Of course, to consider Prayer as a Therapy is to treat God as a time-to-time needed entity. Rather, threat God as an all-time friend and troubles as time-to-time occurrences.
PRAYER AS AN ONGOING PROCESS:
St. Therese of the Child, through her "Little Way" of performing perfectly the small duties of everyday life for the love of God, she has become the model and inspiration of countless ordinary folk. Her special task was to assist the Church's priests and missionaries with prayers and sacrifices.
Though she was sickly and never left the four corners of the convent, the Catholic Church recognizes her as the Doctor of the church for her immense contribution towards evangelization and the spread of the Gospel to all nations (Matthew 28:19-20). She is the Patron Saint of aviators, Russia and Catholic missions.
PRAYER IS NOT SELF-ELATION:
Some are able to narrate story about themselves during the prayer or remind God about the earth as if God is totally unaware. That kind of prayer is like the publican's prayer 9LUKE 18:9-14).
Interestingly, Jesus found the sinner who beat his/her chest and say "God, be merciful to me a sinner" as the one who made his way right with God. To speak our appropriate and rhetorically sound words during prayer is not the criteria to be labeled a religious person. Rather, to stay quietly and listen to God is itself a prayer. It would be like Samuel who said 'Speak Lord, I am listening' (1 Samuel 3:10). Today, the spontaneous trend is "Listen Lord, I am speaking".
WORK AS AN ACTIVE FORM OF PRAYER:
How do you expect a married man to be in the prayer centre all the time while forgetting his family members? That would be mere escapism. In this daily toils to meet both ends, he dedicates his work, his search, his talk, his thinking, his dreams as prayer for the well being of the family members.
That's one form of cultivating to pray while engaged in active work. School, colleges, universities, work place are field to pray and be in touch with God. This awareness of omnipresent God can even lessen corruption and bribes for fear of the Lord's wrath.
PRAYER IS NOT A THERAPY:
Even to treat prayer as a therapy to well the troubles of life is not a right orientation. Prayer is communication with God – with words and also without words. It's the feeling of warmth, His presence every time and all the time. The rising number of prayer mountains in Manipur especially among the various Christian denomination is an imitation of the Hindu practice of lonely life in the foothills of the Himalayas where everyone sets up personal shrines to different deities.
In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, we have famous retreat and pilgrim centres like Potta, St. Thomas Mount, etc. They have in fact attracted world tourism and spiritually charged people of different faith origin.
In Manipur too, these kinds of prayer mounts are on the rise. These will serve the purpose as long as they bring people closer to God followed with good works of charity. The first charity is to forgive self and others. Without this, no others will bear fruit at all. They will be like branches cut out from the vine.
Time to reflect even our pious and religious acts - just a show? for livelihood? or real worship of God?
* Rev. Fr. Paul Lelen Haokip (B.Ed., M.A. Soc., M.A. Public Adm.) wrote this article for Hueiyen Lanpao
The writer can be contacted at paulhowkeep(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)in
This article was posted on August 14 2013.
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