The weight of prayer.

One way in which I like to think of prayer is not by the amount of time I spend praying, but rather the weight of my prayers. 

A prayer with weight has a particular substance to it. It's heavy. Palpable. It holds your soul still, yet lifts your spirit to an eternal height. 

Have you ever seen Pope Francis pray? Have you ever watched him retreat to that place where only he and Jesus communicate, heart to heart? Or St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta? Watch her close her eyes and feel how heavy her intentions of love are towards the poor. Can you pray with such weight? 

Here's what I mean: kneel down and pray a heavy prayer. A prayer of which the intention is so heavy on your heart that it makes you cry, it brings you to tears. Seriously, kneel down and find something that makes your soul cry out to God for help, something that brings you to tears of joy or pain or anything. Sit with that weight, enveloped not by the emotion of it but by the reality of it. Offer that reality up to God. And then, just when you think you are ready to turn away from that heavy, weighty reality of your prayer, sit with it longer. Longer than you think you should. And offer that discipline up to God as an attempt to be heard by the Almighty God who hears all. 

You don't need to speak, unless you want to. Instead, just listen. Listen to your soul cry out "Abba, Father!" 

That's the weight of prayer. In a mysterious way it both grounds us in our reality while lifting us up to the infinite. 

Try it for yourself.