Catholic Prayer and Intimacy with God – Live a Joyful Celebration of the Truth

Second Key to Spiritual Growth: Forming the Habit of Prayer & Spirituality

Like any relationship, prayer needs to be grounded in the truth. In prayer, truth becomes intimacy with God.

Growing in intimacy with God is a major goal for you, isn’t it?

Forming a habit of prayer is an important first step of developing a prayer life. It can help us overcome the main obstacles to Catholic spirituality. And the virtue of prudence can help us form this habit. But we can’t stay there. Catholic spiritual growth needs to be grounded in a personal relationship with Jesus.

Obviously this is the most important part of prayer, its very purpose. If we can grow to the point where every moment of our day is centered on our relationship with Jesus, we would be able to live Saint Paul’s encouragement to “pray always.”

All personal relationships begin with trust, and grow into intimacy.

Knowing About God vs. Knowing God?

I hear many times that we need to worry less about knowing about God and more about knowing God. But this is a false division that comes from a misunderstanding of theology. We tend to think of theology as the realm of the academic elite.

You Can’t Love What You Don’t Know

I had a girlfriend in high school that I met at a football game. We went from flirting to holding hands to kissing to going out before I even knew her name. Only after the night was over and we had declared ourselves “boyfriend and girlfriend,” did I even know that she was a fan for the rival team! Our relationship consisted of meeting at the weekly “teen night” at a local dance joint. We would dance and have fun together, make out, go to parties with friends, but we never really talked. Looking back at that relationship, I remember it as a fun time. But I can’t say that I really loved the girl. We never really took the time to get to know each other. Sure, I had a lot of emotional reactions to her that I thought were love. But our relationship never really grew or matured. It stayed the same because it was not fed by true intimacy. Eventually it just sizzled and died.

Don’t the same rules apply to our relationship with God? Aren’t we in danger of having a stagnant, feel-good relationship with God if we don’t get to know him more deeply?

And what’s the difference between getting to know someone and knowing about them? Well, getting to know things about someone is the first step of really getting to know them. Every relationship starts with head knowledge – the person’s name, what they like to do, their hopes and dreams and fears – all of this is head knowledge. We then come to intimacy when we apply this head knowledge into the lived relationship.

Faith Seeking Understanding

What is faith? Faith is the “theological virtue” that empowers us through grace to trust that what God reveals about himself is true.

Now let’s take this formal definition down to the level of human relationships. What do you have when you grow to trust that a person is being honest about herself and you seek to know her more fully? You have intimacy. Intimacy means to truly know another person and be known by that person.

Theology is the human attempt (aided by grace) to more fully understand what God has revealed about himself and about who we are and how we are to live in relationship with God. Since theology is all about growing in our knowledge of God, theology is really intimacy with God. Yes, love is the most important part of our relationship with God – as we saw in the first element of practical prayer. But you can’t love what you don’t know. Intimacy leads to love. Learning your faith leads to intimacy. Get the connection?

Study and Take Your Knowledge to Prayer

So what are the takeaways for practical prayer?

1. If you want your relationship with God to grow, you need to study your faith. Don’t believe the lie that we are done studying our faith once we are Confirmed! We haven’t even begun! Studying the faith is an ongoing process. After all, we have an infinite God and knowledge about him can never be exhausted!
2. But for it to become true intimacy, your knowledge has to be applied to your lived relationship with God. Take what you learn about God to prayer and ask him to reveal himself through what you know about him. These are the basics of the form of prayer known as meditation.
3. Celebrate the wonder of the truth you’re learning! Even if you don’t enjoy the process of learning at first, you can appreciate the beauty of the truth and how it will grant you greater intimacy with God. Like any new habit, learning becomes easier and more enjoyable with practice. Celebrating the truth even when learning is difficult will keep you motivated to learn and will actually train your emotions to enjoy learning!
   Continuing to learn the faith is an incredibly important part of growing in your prayer life. Learning about God leads to intimacy with God. So find some easy, enjoyable ways to learn. Get started. Then bring what you learn to prayer and see what God does to bless your desire to know and love him more deeply!

Getting Started

Now, if you have trouble with this – you are in the right place! Because, guess what? You are studying your faith right now! This is what From the Abbey is all about! In fact, I have created the Keys to Spiritual Growth course to help Catholic adults get a solid start on learning their faith.

This series begins with a free video tutorial that gets you started applying five vital components of spiritual growth to your life right away. Once you’ve seen that series, I continue to send you great free education such as this article you’re reading now, as well as videos, audio programs, and other resources. When you’re ready to get serious about implementing one of the Keys to Spiritual Growth with some help and direction, full courses are also available. These courses come with online support, encouragement and accountability to help you make some real change in your life. So if you haven’t done so already, visit the home page of www.fromtheabbey.com and get yourself the free video tutorial. Get started growing in faith and kickstarting your spiritual growth!

Brought to you by Jeff Arrowood and From the Abbey, where we are encouraging you to rediscover the JOY of learning and living your faith so you can grow in intimacy with God.

Brought to you by Jeffrey S. Arrowood at From the Abbey, dedicated to helping you rediscover the JOY of learning and living your faith so you can grow in intimacy with God.