Silent Prayer

Bishop Scott Bullock
The Second Sunday of Lent
March 16, 2025

A father took his small son with him to town one day to run some errands. When lunchtime arrived, the two of them went to a familiar diner for a sandwich. The father sat down next to his son and lifted the boy up to the seat next to him. They ordered lunch, and when the waiter brought the food, and then the father said, “Son, let’s have a silent prayer.” 

Dad got through praying first and waited for the boy to finish his prayer, but the boy sat with his head bowed for an unusually long time. When the son finally looked up, his father asked, “What in the world were you praying about all that time?”

The boy replied, “How do I know? It was silent prayer.” 

Back on Ash Wednesday, we heard Jesus propose three practices that have become part and parcel of our Catholic understanding of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Beyond my simply directing you to pray, it’s helpful to reflect how our Church has understood that we pray. As we can see in the story that I just told, just because we have been commanded to pray does not mean we automatically know how to pray or even understand what prayer is.

While our Church holds up many masters of how to pray — one of my favorites is St. Teresa of Avila — in the end, the Gospel that we’ve just heard shows us the best and most important teacher of prayer must always be Jesus himself who the saints merely mirror. 

So, let’s examine closely this scene of Jesus taking his disciples into prayer, to be taught by Jesus himself. So, in the Gospel we heard that Jesus takes His disciples up on the mountain. Then Jesus’ face becomes dazzling white. Jesus then converses with Elijah and Moses. St. Peter requests the building of three booths, that they might remain in this holy place, but the scriptures tell us, “He did not know what he was saying.” 

Then the Father says from heaven, “This is my chosen Son, listen to him.” 

Finally, Jesus and the disciples descend from the mountain.

So, first in the Gospel, we’re told that Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. In this, Jesus teaches us that, if we intend to pray, we’re going to have to step out of our everyday, ordinary, workaday world. This first step of prayer seems especially hard for us busy people. But let’s not flatter ourselves. We’re no busier than any people of any other age. We’re just busy about different things. No matter what age, no matter what the time, if we don’t make space for prayer and step away from other activity, we’ll not pray.

Next in the Gospel, we see Jesus’ face becomes “dazzling white.” We believe that God is light, so this reveals the coming of God’s presence, reminding us that, above all, prayer is not about us coming to God, but rather God coming to us. All we do in prayer is prepare ourselves to receive Him when he comes. 

Guess what? Good news. The pressure is off! Prayer is primarily about God’s actions, not ours, and God faithfully, persistently, relentlessly pursues us.

Next, Jesus converses with ancient figures of Elijah and Moses. Because we find Communion with God, in that moment we leave 2025 in western South Dakota, and we enter into eternity. Time passes away. Hence, we can also know communion with long-dead saints, with whom we meet beyond eternity.

Next in the Gospel, St. Peter is overwhelmed with joy. Wants to build some dwellings, to capture moment, but the Gospel writer comments, “he did not know what he was asking.”

Two aspects of prayer are being taught through the figure of St. Peter. First, we cannot control prayer, capture it and make it persist. When Jesus comes to us, we are thankful, but we can’t contain the Lord. Therefore, trying to replicate a particularly prayerful moment will fail. Instead, all we do again is prepare for the Lord to come and trust, in God’s time, God will come. Further, our feelings are not the measure of God’s presence. God is present! We trust that.

Secondly, St. Peter, in not knowing what he was saying teaches a second truth: prayer will often take us beyond words. Words just are too limited to contain or even describe God. So, in many ways, the little boy in that story teaches a great truth: in the end prayer will become silence, and we don’t need to know what is being said, for its beyond words. We only trust that communion between us and God is happening. It’s good. It’s life changing.

Next, in the Gospel the Father says, “This is my chosen Son, listen to him.” Here, the Father teaches us the essence of prayer — listening to God much more than speaking. Of course, we begin by pouring out our hearts and finally must stop and simply let silence be an occasion to listen. If we are not comfortable with silence, we’re probably not comfortable with prayer.

Finally, Jesus takes the disciples down the mountain. The final reminder is that, after a time of communion in prayer, we are called to rejoin others. Any fruits, consolations, joys that come from prayer, are to be taken to others in our lives. The gifts of the spirit gained in prayer: peace, joy, patience, etc., are always given for others, not to be hoarded in some private mountain retreat.

In summary, what is Jesus teaching us about prayer? It is as simple as this: prepare for the Lord to come by stepping away from ordinary life, and in silence await and then listen to the Lord who comes to us.  We need the support of each other by letting each other help have the space and time to do this. Through prayer, we’re confident that if we seek God, we will find Him, for above all he is seeking to find us.