April 4, 2025
The City Is Prayer
Friends, as I previously wrote, I planned to attend a three-day silent retreat in Pennsylvania, which I did in early March. Now is the time to share one of the key takeaways from those contemplative days.
Our readings during the retreat were from the 3rd Century, now known as the Desert Fathers, but I continue to wonder what caused them to want to leave the world and retreat to the desert. What was there in that time that they felt they had to leave behind? Comparatively speaking, I can better understand if they retreated from our present world, but there was something then, too, that they felt they needed to move away from, which would allow them the proper time to focus on God and prayer.
This group of monks came to be known in the Catholic tradition as the Desert Fathers. They are considered hermits and ascetics, with a hermit being someone who lives in solitude as a form of religious discipline, and ascetics referring to those who practice strict self-denial.
Two sayings attributed to the Desert Fathers were these...
- "When I was younger and remained in my cell, I set no limit to prayer; the night was for me as much the time of prayer as the day."
- "If a man wants God to hear his prayer quickly, then before he prays for anything else, even his own soul, when he stands and stretches out his hands towards God, he must pray with all his heart for his enemies."
The central theme for me, coming away from the retreat, is that the 'city' is prayer. By this is meant that our community, or ourselves as individuals, must hold prayer as a central and unifying practice.
The City is Prayer. St. Isaiah the Solitary's teachings emphasized the importance of prayer and inner stillness as a path to spiritual growth and communion with God, urging people to guard their hearts and minds against distractions.
We each have our cities. Ourselves. Our family. Our community, and all those who God has placed in our lives. Prayer guards our city, all of us, from the enemy as a rampart.
There should be no limits to when we pray and for whom we pray, particularly our enemies.
I strongly recommend anyone in the eastern Ohio or Western Pennsylvania areas to pay a visit to the retreat house known as the St. Thomas More House of Prayer (https://www.liturgy) in Cranberry, PA.
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