My Uncle Chappie, when I visited him in the elegant diocesan hop for the elderly, had a packet of holy cards with prayers on the back. Every one he got—and he got a lot—he added to the bottom of he pack. “It takes me more than half-hour to pray through all of these.”  Then he added, sheepishly, “I really don’t know how to pray,” although he was calling on God and on the Lady Mary all the time, and he was praying in truth.

It actually took him longer than half-an-hour and he thought about it all day long. But he did it. He  prayed through all of those prayer cards, daily. That was, the prayer that the Lord gave him.  His lament, though, is not rare; it often heard during retreats or spiritual direction:  “I don’t think I pray very well,” as though they were not praying the prayer that God is giving them.

Well, Jesus told His followers that they were to pray always, and no one ever claimed that He had said, Pray well. So, all of us, we pray always. That’s well enough. It’s not something mystical. It’s very tangible. It means that we pray with our heads, our hearts, and our hands.

First, our heads means that we are to have ideas a that we are not ashamed to think in God’s holy Presence. God has let us know that He wants good for each of us whom He is creating., and that He is merciful, the opposite of vengeful and mean.

We also know that God is putting into my life those whom I can love, and Jesus was eminently clear about this: love one another the way I have loved you. So, my idea is that this life and its world are what a good, loving God wants for me and for all of us. That’s my head.

What’s in my heart begins with a decision that I hold these beautiful thoughts in my heart as my feelings and sentiments, I intend to as long as I live.  I have heard proclaimed that Jesus is Lord and I choose to say YES to that, here and now, today and forever, trusting Him and His power to make the life that I am living go on as long as is conceivable—that is, forever.

I can keep that up that because I have accepted that His Spirit has planted in my heart both the divine love and the human love that responds to it. I did not begin this; I accept that it was the loving God who began it. So, I  insist, YES—I love the Lord my God and I love those He puts in my life.

Enemies?  Only if anyone decide to be that; but I will not collaborate with them, wanting nothing to do with hate, and I present their case to my Redeemer.  

There we have the hands—what I do. I keep holy ideas—maybe doing it by reciting the Creed and an act of hope daily, or by praying the rosary, or by saying a whole list of prayers like Uncle Chappie. That’s the beginning of hands.

Upholding that, I deliberately set myself to do what cannot be understood except as love for those whom God has given me and for God, too.

This is the fulfillment of hands: I am helping those whom God has put into my life, somehow and anyhow, and I am not waiting to be approved of. And if I am moved to do it, I find books that give me ideas and feelings about the next good thing to do. Added to that, I choose what is fair and just and I reach out to help the needy and the elderly and the helpless, even when I’d like to be doing something that I like for myself.  

This is the prayer that Jesus meant when He said love one another the way I loved you. He loved us head, heart, and hands—He thought about us, cared about us, and all His life that we know about, he acted out of thoughts for those whom the Father put into His life, and cared for them, too. He did nothing but the truth.

All of this, even though he never imagined it, actually, underlay all of my Uncle Chappie’s many, many prayer cards. Some might grimace at this but they are mistaken. Jesus did not command us to pray this or that way. He commanded us to pray always. The only way to do that is to include head with ideas and thoughts; heart with desires and loves; and hands with people to help and things to do that need doing.

All of this is to flash back at that grouse that I don’t pray very well. The only way to pray very well is to let the Holy Spirit give you joy in praying as you do pray. And do it a lot, with or without rosary beads or books or a stack of holy cards like my Uncle Chappie’s.