Before diving into the rules of discernment, I must look at some psychological principles. I am not a psychologist but I do know that the mind has a lot to do with our present conversation on prayer, and it is a major player in our life of faith. To dismiss the principles of psychology in favor of a type of spiritualism, which denies the body and the mind as being influential on our prayer lives would be imprudent. Psychology, if practiced and studied through the lens of Christian anthropology, does have something to offer, especially in the area of understanding the power of the imagination and habitual human behavior. It is for this reason I would like to look at two laws in the discipline of psychology that will assist us in our preparation for prayer.
The first of these principles is the truth that human thought is creative. What you think and how you think is the single most determining factor of who you are. What do you spend most of your days thinking about? What you are thinking about is forming who you are as a person. The Saints thought about God, about doing good and serving their neighbor (Remember the story of St. Ignatius of Loyola?). What do you think about? What fills your imagination on a daily basis? St. Ignatius tells us that both God and the Devil work in the imagination. When God is working in the imagination the thoughts are God-centered, when the enemy is working in the imagination the thoughts are ego-centered. St. Paul says, “brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8) Why? Because you will become what you think about most!
The second principle I would like to speak about is called the law of exposure. This law states that your mind will think most about what it is most exposed to. I think most people are under the illusion that they can take in anything they want and it won’t affect them! That they can look at whatever they want to look at on the Internet and it won’t change the attitudes of their hearts! That they can listen to whatever they want to listen to and it won’t affect their faith life. The law of exposure states very clearly and scientifically that the images, the ideas, the sounds, the things I let into my mind determine who I am. Like or not, everything we take in is forming us! It is putting distractions into our lives and molding our minds to think a certain way and teaching our hearts to feel a certain way. So what are you and I exposing ourselves to?
At the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises St. Ignatius addresses both of these laws in what he calls, The First Principle and Foundation. He writes, “The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God Our Lord, and by doing so, to save his or her soul. All other things on the face of the earth are created for human beings in order to help them pursue the end for which they are created. It follows from this that one must use other created things, in so far as they help towards one's end, and free oneself from them, in so far as they are obstacles to one's end. To do this, we need to make ourselves indifferent to all created things. Thus, as far as we are concerned, we should not want health more than illness, wealth more than poverty, fame more than disgrace, a long life more than a short one, and similarly for all the rest, but we should desire and choose only what helps us more towards the end for which we are created.”
I don’t want to just give you a clever quote, I want to give you some practical advice or at least some real lived experience to help you understand what our great saint is saying. Let me give you three examples to help you grasp this spiritual and psychological principle. A buddy of mine loves the band Maroon 5, but some of their songs have some pretty bad lyrics. After learning the above principles he had to admit that these were not just songs with great beats. They were songs that were forming him and affecting him, and it wasn’t in a positive way. He had to get rid of a couple of their songs from his playlist. He did this out of love for God so that he could grow closer to him instead of distancing himself.
The second example is from my life and involves the TV show “24”. To this day it is still my favorite TV show. The problem with “24” as with most TV shows is they have moral dilemmas that affect us deeply. Most of the moral quandaries deal with unnecessary use of violence to break terrorists. When I first started watching it, I constantly pondered the different decisions and why they were made. It was a good exercise for my mind and helped me grow in my moral convictions. After a couple of seasons I noticed that I wanted to watch it more for the violence then I did for the moral dilemmas. Jesus brought this to me in prayer. I decided to stop watching the show out of love for him. After about 2 years I started watching it again with the renewed sense of pondering moral questions as posed in the show.
Finally, let me speak about the Internet. The Internet is a great thing and can be used in many amazing ways, but it can also become a major distraction draining precious hours in our day with useless surfing. Not only does it rob of us of our time that could be spent with our families or in prayer it can expose us to many terrible and dehumanizing things. A married man I worked with once told me that he had heard Jesus ask him in prayer to limit his use of the Internet so as to spend more time with his family. He made a promise to Jesus that he would no longer have the internet on his phone, and that to the best of his ability he would leave his computer at the office so as to be rid of this distraction in the evenings. He had his wife lock out the internet on the phone and in the evenings he spent his extra time with his family!
These are just a few examples. I share them with you in hopes that you will make some changes in your life. That you will not sit on the fence trying to reconcile your faith with worldly ideals. Do not be of two minds but be single-minded, and remember Jesus promises us that “the pure of heart will see God.” (MT 5:8)
Scripture suggestions for prayer: Proverbs 4, Isaiah 26:3, Ephesians 6:12-18…During you prayer make an honest assessment of what is really drawing you to God and what is really drawing you away from him. At the end of your prayer make a firm resolution to rid yourself of those things that draw you away from him, and thank him for the things that bring you into communion with him. Always remember, start small!