Falling alseep in prayer or making prayer another item on the checklist….Fr Boniface Hicks discusses his book and reveals the secrets of deepening your Catholic prayer life!
I was thinking about what you said about prayer becoming more simple. As a fighter pilot, you can imagine that I like checklists—I do an input, and I get an output. I’m an achiever, right? I get things done, and that can be very helpful in the beginning stages of faith. I set up habits, I have routines, and I’m very good at that stuff.
What I’m not so good at is, at some point, it’s healthy for that to transition from a very utilitarian mindset to doing less and being more. I was thinking about this recently; for the longest time, I’ve kept a prayer journal. It’s not anything crazy—it’s just that as I pray, if there’s a line that sticks out, I’ll write it down, or if there’s something on my heart, I’ll just make a little note, and I can come back to it.
But recently, I haven’t been writing in my prayer journal because I’ve just been trying to be with the Lord and take this one step of surrender, in a way. But when I do that, sometimes I feel like I’m being lazy, or I let things slide. When I’m not on top of the habits, I don’t always pray for as long as I should, or sometimes I miss it, or sometimes I fall asleep.
So, could you talk about the concept of active receptivity, which is a really difficult concept to understand? If I’m too much on the active side, it feels like I’m getting myself to heaven, and that’s not the answer. But if I’m too much on the passive side, I don’t do anything, and I just feel lazy. Can you speak to that?
Active Receptivity in Prayer is a balanced approach that involves both intentional action and open surrender as you pray. It means being engaged and present in prayer without overly relying on rigid structures like checklists or routines. Active receptivity allows for flexibility and freedom in the relationship with God, recognizing that while disciplined habits can be helpful, true prayer is an encounter of two freedoms—yours and God’s. It emphasizes being rather than just doing, allowing room for both active participation and passive openness to God’s presence and guidance.
You just described and gave me a lot of things to work with, which is really beautiful. You’re identifying and observing your own uniqueness and humanity, which is important. One of the things we try to emphasize in the book is that we pray as human beings. We don’t bring someone else’s humanity, we don’t bring this plastic perfection, we don’t bring angelic nature—we have human nature, and that’s all we’ve got. God knows how He made us, and if He doesn’t like it, well, that’s His problem.
People are on a spectrum in terms of discipline and checklists, and if you have that, that’s great. But we just never want to make an idol out of these things; that’s probably the simplest way to say it. Even as we came into this conversation, you said, “We put out a bunch of questions.” And to your credit, you’re not stuck on those questions—it’s not like you have to get through all seven of them. We skipped four, you know?
So, good for the preparation, and good that you have those things, but then there has to be a flexibility to allow things to move relationally. Prayer is always an encounter of two freedoms—you are free, and God is free. He doesn’t have to abide by your checklist. That’s not to say He doesn’t like them; I like them, and He likes them—we like checklists, and that’s fine. But He doesn’t have to follow them; if He did, He wouldn’t be free, and then it wouldn’t be a relationship. There has to be freedom for there to be love.
You bring your humanity. Some people couldn’t make a checklist if their life depended on it, and they’re not required to; we work with that too. But relationships and our values get invested into checklists and habits. You don’t get to the end of the day and say, “Well, my wife has this checklist for me, and I checked all the boxes, so our relationship is good.” That’s not what makes your relationship good.
On the other hand, if you didn’t have any values that included your wife—like if there were no mental checklist, set of habits, ways that you show up, or consistency in prioritizing—I would have to ask how your marriage is. That’s an issue too.
That’s some of the space that we’re working in.
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