As the Curé of Ars says, prayerexpands our small hearts and renders themcapable of loving God.

Prayer and happiness

By Victor B. Brezik

His message in the short Breviary excerpt goes straight to the heart of the matter. Where is a Christian's real treasure? It is not on earth but in heaven, where, as the Gospel says, rust and moth do not consume nor thieves break in and steal (Matt. 6:20). Presumably, Saint John Vianney was thinking here, too, of the inconceivable delights Sacred Scripture declares God has stored up for those who love him (cf. 1 Cor. 2:9; Isa. 64:3). Where, then, should our thoughts be mainly directed? They should evidently be focused on where our treasure is. This means keeping our minds raised up on higher things. In short, it means to pray and to love, since in prayer we only ask for what we love. To pray and to love. Saint John Vianney regards this as our "glorious duty." What is more, since in doing this we fulfill our glorious duty, it makes us happy. "If you pray and love," he says, "that is where a man's happiness lies."

But what does it mean to pray? Here again Saint John Vianney is brief and direct. "Prayer," he says, "is nothing else but union with God." A profound statement, to say the least. Yet too profound, perhaps, to convey much meaning to our weak understanding. How can one be in union with God who transcends us in every respect? Can we put our arms around God in the way we may embrace one another? Can we sit close to him and sense his vibrant presence, feel his warmth, smell a divine odor or see the glow of his radiant face? God, we know, is pure Spirit. It is only through our spiritual powers of intellect and will, not by sense, that we can communicate, be in touch, as it were, with another spirit and so with God. Union with God can come only through knowledge and love, activities of the spirit.

This is what happens in prayer. Spirit calls to Spirit. Out of its depths the human soul addresses itself to the deep things of God and God, as it were, hears its voice. Through this spiritual communication and contact there results union, union in terms of knowledge and love, union of creature and Creator, of finite mind confronting infinite Intelligence and of a spark of human love flying up to the divine cauldron. Saint John Vianney did not define this union of prayer in theological language. He spoke with a human tongue a language replete with homely, even earthly metaphors. His comparisons are familiar to us but through these earthbound expressions there filters through to us their deep mystical significance. We dimly grasp what he means by union with God through prayer. "When one has a heart that is pure and united with God," the Curé says, "he is given a kind of serenity and sweetness that makes him ecstatic, a light that surrounds him with marvelous brightness." A condition for this union, as we notice, is purity of heart, a heart, let us say, that is open to divine love and closed to what is Godless, a heart uncompromised by attachment to sin.

When there is purity of heart, a person is rightly disposed and in a condition of readiness for union with God through prayer which by the uplifting power of divine grace can lead not only to intimacy with God but even to a kind of permanent and habitual state of union. "In this intimate union," Saint John Vianney says, "God and the soul are fused together like two bits of wax that no one can ever pull apart." This is only a metaphor but a striking one indeed. Serious sin cannot enter the heart to break up this union.

How worthy is such a union? John Vianney speaks of it with endearment. "This union of God with a tiny creature," he says, "is a lovely thing. It is happiness beyond understanding." The implication is that by prayerfully elevating one's mind and heart to where one's true treasure is, one is already on earth sharing in the indescribable happiness of heaven.

Not only is such prayer true happiness for the creature. Saint John Vianney extends its value beyond the creature even to God. He says, "We had become unworthy to pray, but God in His goodness allowed us to speak with Him. Our prayer is incense that gives Him the greatest pleasure." God too, then, according to John Vianney, is much pleased when we pray. The connection of prayer with incense echoes the Book of Revelation (8:4) which speaks of incense with the prayers of the saints ascending before God (cf. Ps. 141:2).

As the Curé of Ars says, prayer expands our small hearts and renders them capable of loving God. We receive through prayer a foretaste of heaven, he declares. Something of paradise comes down upon us. Its effect upon us is a honey-like sweetness that pervades the soul. Such sweetness is incompatible with a downcast heart. Prayer, he assures us in his graphic style, makes "sorrows disappear like snow before the sun." Because it delights the soul, prayer makes us unaware of the passing of time. While preoccupied with prayer, we do not notice time going by.

There is a great difference between persons who pray and persons who do not. Some persons are deeply immersed in prayer. Prayer is so habitual and familiar to them that they take to it as fish to water, as though it were their natural element. The reason for this is that they give themselves totally, without reserve, to God and his service. As a result, God to them is a constant companion with whom they converse as easily as we ourselves talk to one another. He thinks this is the way it was with Saint Francis and Saint Colette. It may also be the way it was with Saint John Vianney himself.

In his modesty, however, John Vianney aligns himself with the class of average Christians. They know well enough what to talk about with one another. But when it comes to prayer, they become tongue-tied. In church, they scarcely know what they are there for or what to do. They are not schooled in the practice of prayer. They have much to learn.

There is a worse class of Christians. These Christians do not neglect prayer entirely. They recite some prayer formulas in routine fashion, hurriedly, distractedly, wishing to be done quickly with fulfilling their duties to God. God is not their prime interest. There are more absorbing attractions in life. As John Vianney puts it, they speak to God in words like this: "I will only say a couple of things to you, and then I will be rid of you."

In the Breviary excerpt, Saint John Vianney does not mention the class of people who never pray, either through neglect, or worse still, because they have, or think they have, no faith in God and see no purpose in prayer. The Curé of Ars addresses his words rather to persons with faith and a pure heart. They are the ones he is encouraging to pray. With proper dispositions, they are persons who will benefit from the practice of prayer and may come to enjoy the tranquility of soul and the profound happiness that habitual prayer can bring. "I often think," he says, "that when we come to adore the Lord, we would receive everything we ask for, if we would ask with living faith and with a pure heart." In his view, such prayer and happiness go hand in hand.