In His Presence

Why pray?

Prayer stems for a desire, originates in life and takes flesh in the body and in time. It can be expressed with words, sighs, tears, gestures or songs manifesting our thirst for God. Christian faith reveals that God the Father exists only by loving and giving Himself: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3, 16)

Jesus used to dedicate a large amount of time to prayer. Why should we pray though? Because God is God, to enter His desire of our salvation, to live of the Spirit, inner master of prayer. “Come Holy Spirit”. And how should we pray? By praying as you are, by talking to Jesus as you would to a friend, by meditating his word alone or within the Church, by believing that you are worthy of being loved by God. The more you love the better you pray. What if we stop praying? Well, you get back to it by setting a clear time for it. Prayer is a constantly new start, never a finish. Take prayer day by day.

I will summarize my experience of prayer in a few words. My use of the word ‘experience’ is deliberate because, rather than a rite or an exercise to complete, prayer is primarily an experience of faith and love encompassing one’s whole life, an encounter with Christ that meets and extends his prayer to the Father.

Prayer is at the heart of my life

Prayer has grown in parallel to my own growth – I don’t quite know how in fact. It did its first steps as soon as I was able to mumble “Hail Mary” and “Our Father”. From quite an early age I was attracted by the Eucharist, which is the source and summit of Christian life. I gave up the Church as a teenager under the hippie culture. I cried out: “God if you exist, reveal yourself to me.” He responded through his mother, the Virgin Mary, who had been in my life since my baptism on 8 December, 1951.

I came back to faith on 2 June, 1972, through a new community as I was on my way to California. During the evening prayer, I recited three Ave with other youngsters. I was grabbed in the celebration of a God who in turn was praying me to welcome His superabundant love. I never recovered from that calling.

I lived at the Arche in Trosly-Breuil in 1973 with handicapped people. I discovered silent inner prayer, also called contemplative prayer and I read the complete works of John of the Cross. I got completely changed by that prayer and that led me to the Cistercian abbey of Oka, near Montreal, which I had to leave after four years because of ill health. The key tenets of that experience for me were inner freedom, the love of liturgy and the desire to be holy.

Then I met my wife who was living in a prayer house created in the wake of the Charismatic Renewal. It was soon clear to both of us that the Lord had chosen us to follow and love him through marriage. Prayer has always been at the heart of our life as a couple and a family. I undertook theological studies which led me to write a PhD thesis on the theopoetry of Patrice de La Tour du Pin. I was hired at Saint-Paul University in Ottawa where I taught pastoral theology for twenty years.

When I hit forty, prayer took an unexpected turn. It became a desert, barren and dry, full of doubt. I was stuck to bed by a double pneumonia in 1995. I thought I was going to die. By accepting my death, I was welcoming life. I took a small path of liberation made of love and trust. A young carmelite of Lisieux explained the way forward in her autobiography The Story of a Soul. I owe a lot to this woman of desire, who understood through her life that the infinite love of the God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit takes pleasure mostly in the small, feeble, forsaken and sorely tested things, I devoted about twelve books to her.

Heart to heart with God

Every morning I pray in silence. Whether I feel God’s presence or not, whether I get overtaken by distractions or overwhelmed by tiredness, never mind since Christ lives in me. The name of Jesus, which I repeat effortlessly, always brings me back to the desire that makes you live – love. “I don’t say anything to Him, I just love Him”, as Little Theresa used to confide a few weeks before her death. Speechless prayer is nothing but that simple eye contact of two gazes which are consumed in silence out of love, like two lovers burning at the same fire of the heart-to-heart exchange.

Sometimes, I feel that there is not much happening, that God seems distant and indifferent, that I don’t know how to pray. This is when real prayer starts, the prayer you don’t give to yourself. When you lose your prayer, that’s when you gain it. It is not our own creation, it is the work of the Spirit in ourselves.

The further I walk the paths of prayer, the simpler it becomes. I am there, God is there; He loves me, I love Him. He always gives me the prayer that suits me today. All I need to do is welcome it in trust and surrender to His mercy, until the day when He will say to me: “Enter into the joy of your lord” (Mt 25, 21).

Jacques Gauthier is a poet and an essayist, author of 85 books, including his autobiography, En sa présence (2022), a practical guide, La prière chrétienne (2023) a a spiritual digest, À l’école de Thérèse de Lisieux (2025). He maintains a blog a YouTube chain. Look up www.jacquesgauthier.com