Prayer Of Recollection
Prayer of Recollection
The psalmist recollected his soul with this prayer, “Be at rest once more, O my soul, / for the Lord has been good to you” (Psalm 116:7). A recollected soul is the opposite of a distracted, fragmented soul. It is a soul collected and at rest in God. Because it is natural for the mind to make random associations and wander off in a million directions, we need a prayer that recalls our soul to its center in God. The prayer of recollection reveals where our distracted hearts are going—where they are sidetracked by books on the desk, the sound of the radio in the next room and the new color scheme for the kitchen. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Distractions reveal our attachments. Attachments reveal what in our heart needs recollecting back to God once again.
Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, François Fénelon, St. Francis de Sales and Dietrich von Hildebrand are a few of the authors (besides the psalmists) who write about recalling or “recollecting” our souls back to their home in God. Though they don’t share one formula for this kind of prayer, they all agree that the flood of distracting thoughts in prayer can be received as a gift! When you want to recollect your soul and end up rewriting the agenda for the next meeting in your head or when you begin praying for a colleague and end up imagining where you want to go on vacation, don’t push these thoughts aside. Notice them. You cannot recollect what you don’t know to be scattered. You cannot abandon what you don’t see. The way to a heart at rest in God comes through confessing and abandoning our limited, preoccupied heart.
Thomas Dubay, in his book Fire Within, notes that John of the Cross suggests, “The more a pane of glass is free of anything not pure glass the more it can be transformed into a ray of sunlight.” In the prayer of recollection we pay attention to our wandering thoughts and attachments so that we can be transformed “into a ray of sunlight.” We open ourselves to seeing how secondary things have become idols of our heart—how our agendas, possessions, appearances and comforts matter more than keeping God first in our lives. The attachment to secondary things acts like a cataract on the eye, sapping out strength and spiritual energy and leaving us blind to what drives us. Throughout the ages, the faithful consistently proclaim, as Jesus did, that relinquishment of secondary things is the key to delight in God.
Transformation into Christlikeness requires detachment from whatever keeps us from returning to and resting in God, who is our treasure and our core. In the prayer of recollection we offer our distractible self to Christ. We name our escape tactics and the fantasies designed to shield us from disappointment. Then we offer them to God who alone can save us from a divided heart and reunite us with the undivided heart of God. In the book Spiritual Letters to Women we find a letter François Fénelon wrote to a busy lady living in 1692: “Recollection is the only cure for your haughtiness, the sharpness of your contemptuous criticism, the sallies of your imagination, your impatience with inferiors, your love pleasures, and all your other faults.”
Confessing our attachments before the holy One, we return to our true root identity in God. We abandon the false self to embrace the true one. Remember, the self caught up in worry, power plays and image management is not the true self; it’s a self that creates its identity through attachment to secondary things. But God has given you an identity. Receive it. Recollect your Christ-in-me identity. Over time, the prayer of recollection is meant to shape your soul so you rest in the bosom of Christ, in the arms of God, in the love of the Spirit.
Reflection Questions
- What makes it difficult for you to concentrate while praying?
- How do you tend to react to distractions in prayer?
- What do distractions in prayer reveal about your core identity and concerns?
- When do you tend to be most secure in your identity?
- What is it like to not have a clear role that defines how you are to interact with others?
Spiritual Exercises
- Find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably before the Lord. Take some deep breaths, relaxing your body and quieting your mind. Offer yourself to God. Ask him to gather up the fragments of your scattered life and recollect your soul. Rest before him. When distracting thoughts come up, write down one word that expresses your distraction. Let the thought go and return to your rest in God. • After ten minutes look at the words you have jotted down. What stands out to you? What anxieties do you see? Where is your identity centered? • Confess that you are not called to control all that disrupts your life. Return these concerns to the Lord. Let him hold the concerns of your heart as you rest in him.
- Intentionally come into the presence of God. Spend several moments thanking Jesus that he is present with you. Then quietly settle into resting with and in him. • When you become distracted, invite Jesus to look at the distraction with you. What does Jesus want to say to you about the distraction? Give the distraction to him again and settle into rest. Continue the process of handing distractions to Jesus as you settle more and more deeply into your restful identity in him.
Resources on the Prayer of Recollection
The Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila
Transformation in Christ by Hans Urs von Balthasar
“When we pray ‘through Christ’ more is involved than merely asking God in heaven to make some kind of intervention. The community too, and we ourselves, must be involved not just in the petition but also in trying to bring about what the petition pleads for.” —Ronald Rolheiser
Prayer Walking
DESIRE | to align myself, while walking in particular places, with Christ and his intercession for the kingdom to come |
DEFINITION | Prayer walking is a way of physically walking with Jesus through places (hospitals, homes, businesses, churches, schools, playgrounds, housing projects, service agencies, counties, countries, etc.) that you are concerned about. From the vantage point of proximity, prayers for the kingdom to come are offered to God. |
SCRIPTURE | “Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer.” (1 Peter 4:7 The Message) “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior.” (1 Timothy 2:1-3) |
PRACTICE INCLUDES |
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GOD-GIVEN FRUIT |
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