Prayer and Privacy

The Catholic Thing

By John M. Grondelski No small part of American political discourse currently revolves around "privacy." Clearly, there must be some "private" zone of personal thought and action. But how should a Catholic view privacy? As with everything else, he should start from God's perspective. Once upon a time, every Catholic kid used to hear the maternal admonition: "God is watching." If God is everywhere and, in all things, closer to you than you are to yourself, as St. Augustine suggests in Confessions (Book III), that should not be surprising. It reminds us, however, that there is no aspect of life entirely sealed off to the isolated individual. The Bible, after all, affirms as much. Scripture reminds us "we are surrounded by a. . .great cloud of witnesses." (Hebrews 12:1) That's what the communio sanctorum ("communion of saints") means. And, speaking of the end times, Jesus Himself warns: "What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftops." (Matthew 10:27) That's because "there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be made known." (Luke 12:2-3). And after all, that's why the General Judgment will occur: not because Jesus might reverse your or my Particular Judgment, but because what man has made of himself is not just private. It is a social reality that Truth itself demands. The truth is that "privacy" is often an excuse to attempt to hide wrongdoing. St. John the Evangelist is clear that "men have loved darkness because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19) Even when speaking of the "cloud of witnesses," the sacred author draws a consequence: "let us strip off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles." As a graduate student at Fordham, taking the bus home to New Jersey forty years ago, I'd see a neon sign in the window of an office building as the bus wended its way down the Port Authority Bus Terminal corkscrew to the Lincoln Tunnel. At night, that sign shone with two words in red: "Jesus knows." In the sexual cesspool that was then Times Square, that neon light was prophetic - and evangelical. So, privacy is not a shield against God. "It is not good for the man to be alone." (Genesis 2:18) And no matter how starved someone may be for human accompaniment, God never leaves man alone. Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre-Elliot Trudeau once opined the state has no place in the nation's bedrooms, but God always makes marriage a threesome. The secular notion of privacy is ultimately rooted in a false notion of liberty, one that assumes human freedom situates man in a posture of neutrality between good and evil, where either is a legitimate "choice." Sometimes, that notion stretches to the extreme of regarding that choice as actually constitutive of an act's moral value: what is "good" is what I choose, what is "bad" is what I do not choose. It's not accidental that the biggest and most lethal contemporary lie (see John 8:44) makes "choice" and "privacy" euphemisms for prenatal murder. So, is there a Christian notion of "privacy?" Yes. It's this: The life of prayer is the sanctuary of the soul, the place - the "holy of holies" - where God alone is present with the beloved soul. Where no one has access. Every praying soul experiences Him differently. The entire activity that He demands of the soul is fidelity to His inspiration, faithfulness to grace. All that is needed on our part is to quiet down, abiding in humble silence in His Presence; and not to become discouraged even if the Lord says nothing. It suffices that the soul adores Him in humility and faith as He who Is." - Servant of God Sr. Emanuela Kalb The best example of this might be found in the Gospel for Ash Wednesday, advising us to go to our room, close the door, and pray to our Father in private. (Matthew 6:6) Only two people are then privy to that conversation: God and the soul. In every prayer, though - even those prayed in the middle of a St. Peter's Bas...