Summary of Personal Prayer: A Guide for Receiving the Father’s Love by Fr. Thomas Acklin, OSB & Fr. Boniface Hicks, OSB

This book is praised as one of the most practical and relatable guides on prayer, offering deep insights into how personal prayer can transform one’s relationship with God. Here’s summary of the key themes:

The Foundation of Prayer: Experiencing Prayer as a Relationship

Fr. Acklin and Fr. Hicks frame prayer as a personal relationship with God, akin to how we interact with our closest human connections (a close friend, parent, or spouse). Since God became human in Jesus, we are called to engage with Him genuinely and openly. They emphasize bringing your whole self to prayer, using your imagination to picture God lovingly engaging with you, which helps bridge the gap between human experience and divine encounter. They stress that this isn’t make-believe; imagination is a tool God uses to draw us into deeper communication with Him, guided by Scripture and Tradition (eg. writings of the saints).

A key part of experiencing prayer as relationship involves the contemplative dimension. Acklin & Hicks present the contemplative dimension of prayer as foundational and something that grows steadily in the life of everyone, permeating the entire experience of prayer and indeed the whole of the Christian life – a normal part of the path of sanctity: “Contemplation is not so much an elite stage of prayer development as it is an aspect of a personal relationship. When we think of prayer in relational terms, we understand how a relationship between a mother and a child can be very deep and intense even before words are possible” (xxxiii).

Judith Glaser’s “Conversational Intelligence” outlines three levels of conversation based on trust, which can be applied to our relationship with God:

1. Transactional (Tell and Ask): This level involves basic exchanges of information, updates, and facts. With God, this resembles treating Him like an oracle, where trust is low, and we approach Him only for specific answers or favors when all else fails. While this level has its place, it should not define our entire relationship with God.
2. Positional (Advocate and Inquire): At this level, trust is conditional, and we engage in conversations to advocate for our desires while seeking input from the other party. In prayer, this is like treating God as a boss or benevolent master—engaging with Him when we feel safe and supported but still focusing on getting what we want. This level of conversation is exemplified in biblical stories like Abraham negotiating with God over Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16-33) and Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.
3. Transformational (Share and Discover): This highest level of conversation involves full sharing of thoughts, feelings, and desires, with high trust between partners. Here, God is seen as a best friend who listens without judgment, valuing every detail we share. In this type of dialogue, we focus on the relationship rather than the results. Jesus invites us into this level of conversation, as seen in John 15:15, where He calls us friends and shares everything with us if we allow it.

These levels encourage us to deepen our prayer life, moving from basic requests to a fully trusting relationship with God where we share everything, knowing it will be received with love and care.

The depth of our relationship with God depends on how we approach and communicate with Him. If we treat Him like a stranger or only engage superficially, our relationship will remain distant and shallow. Sporadic interactions will keep God at the level of an acquaintance. However, when we bring our entire selves to God—our fears, hopes, wounds, failures, and love—the relationship deepens infinitely. The only limitation is our own willingness to trust and be vulnerable with Him.

The Fundamentals of Prayer:

Vulnerability

God’s infinite vulnerability is revealed in both the mystery of the Trinity—where the Son eternally empties Himself in love, and the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and Son—and in the Incarnation, where divine vulnerability meets human frailty. This divine vulnerability is not just a theological concept but the very meeting place of our deepest encounters with God. It allows us to connect with Him in a profoundly human way, reflecting how we are made in His image (cf. Gen 1:27).

“To develop a deep relationship with God, we must become vulnerable” (30). True prayer requires us to present ourselves honestly before God, not as we wish to be or hope to become, but exactly as we are—with all our distractions, temptations, weaknesses, and sins. Often, we are tempted to hide behind a facade of what we think we should be, but the path to true intimacy with God is paved with vulnerability.

When we courageously expose our hearts to God, sharing our weaknesses, uncertainties, failures, sins, dreams, and even our playful plans, we embrace vulnerability before Him. “The best way to open up to vulnerable intimacy with Him is to make a profound act of humility and to open our hearts wide to Him. As explicitly as possible, we should offer our entire selves to Him, every part of us, especially the parts we consider poorest and ugliest. To Him, all is precious” (30-31). This openness extends beyond words; it is expressed through our body language in prayer—whether we kneel, bow our heads, or open our hands.

As we persevere in this vulnerable posture, we begin to realize that God is not passive; He actively seeks to open our hearts further. God draws us into deeper intimacy through Scripture, silence, and our inner experiences. He meets us in our distractions, desires, memories, and even in our sins—places where He loves us most. Love seeks totality; thus, we are invited to share everything with Him.

Vulnerability is not just for private moments but is integral to liturgical prayer as well. “The most vulnerably intimate human acts are redeemed by the Liturgy” (190), making every aspect of our relationship with God a sacred space where we can be our truest selves.

Reflect on your own prayer life: On a scale of 1-10, how vulnerable are you with God?

Since God is infinitely vulnerable, eternally present in both (1) the Trinity: the self-emptying filiation of the Son and the spiration of love between Father and Son in the Holy Spirit; and (2) the Incarnation: uniting divine vulnerability with human vulnerability

• vulnerability always remains our meeting place with God & facilitates the deepest human and divine encounter in prayer – a key to the way in which we are like Him (cf. Gen 1:27).

Therefore, “[t]o develop a deep relationship with God, we must become vulnerable” (30).

Rather than trying to ignore the aspects of (1) our frail humanity (distractions, temptations, tiredness, sadness, irritation, and other foul moods) and (2) our sinfulness (guilt, sense of unworthiness, etc), which seem to us to be the primary stumbling blocks to prayer, and hiding behind the facade of what we wish we were or what we someday hope to be (beginners often bring their best selves to God), we must learn to come before Him as we are.

• When we open up the depths of our hearts to Him and expose our littleness, our weakness, our uncertainties, our failures, our sins, our big dreams, and our playful plans, we make ourselves very vulnerable before God.

“To develop a deep relationship with God, we must become vulnerable. The best way to open up to vulnerable intimacy with Him is to make a profound act of humility and to open our hearts wide to Him. As explicitly as possible, we should offer our entire selves to Him, every part of us, especially the parts we consider poorest and ugliest. To Him all is precious. We do this with our mind and our heart, and we also do this with our bodies by our posture” (eg. prostration, kneel, open hands, bow heads) (30-31).

[A]s we persevere, we discover that God is actively trying to open our hearts and draw us into a deeper, vulnerable intimacy with Him” (31). God opens our hearts in vulnerability through Scripture, silence (God draws more out of our heart when we speak to Him in silence – moving us beyond initial questions), feelings (we want to open up everything to God – memory, reason, imagination, emotions, everything), distractions (invite God into your distractions), deepest desires, memories & sins (only God loves you in those places – in fact, He loves us most of all in those places). Overall, love seeks totality – so share everything with Him.

• Vulnerability is as essential part of liturgical prayer, both in private & public: “The most vulnerably intimate human acts are redeemed by the Liturgy” (190).

On a scale of 1-10, how vulnerable are you in prayer?

Click here for an article on the courageous vulnerability it takes to invite God into the temptations and lies that assault us in spiritual desolation.

2nd – Silence & Listening

Understanding silence

• “Our relationship with God began in silence. From the moment of our creation, indeed from all eternity, He knew us and loved us beyond words. He has never stopped knowing us and loving us and willing us into being. All of that happens in silence” (64).
• “Silence also marked the beginning of our most foundational relationships… [Our mother’s] love for us was communicated like God’s, primarily in silence. Even after birth, as a baby who cannot speak, love was communicated in silence and simplicity. A mother knows her baby and loves her baby mostly without words… Even the words that father and mother began to use to speak to their child are incomprehensible to the baby at first. Only over time does the baby come to understand those words and begin to speak and slowly to converse” (65).
• “For a baby at rest in its mother’s arms, there is the most profound communication of love taking place that gives life to the baby and fosters growth, but which the baby is not able to consciously acknowledge. Likewise, we spend our whole lives in the arms of God, being loved by Him, without realizing that we are in the arms of God. The deepest prayer is a silent acknowledgement of that fact, expressed in a choice to receive His love and to rest in Him” (65).
• “Two of the things that we dislike most about prayer are when we pray and don’t hear anything, or when we pray and it is all dry and dark. We feel that prayer then is not good, is not working. In fact, these are two of the things that indicate we are truly praying to God and connecting with Him who is hidden, and not just entertaining our own thoughts and feelings. We actually should seek the darkness and seek the silence, not try to avoid them!” (132).

Awkward silence: We struggle with silence in our relationship with God. There is an analogy here with human relationships. We speak of an “awkward silence.” Think of getting into an elevator with strangers… we become very self-conscious and worried… Now reflect on how different it is when we share the elevator with someone we know… We are able to wait peacefully in silence.

“There is a breakthrough when we discover that God’s silence is never ambiguous. God’s silence is always silent love… He is not withholding anything from us. He is not refusing to speak to us or to answer our questions. Rather, His presence is always Himself. He, Himself, is the answer to all our questions. His love is the fulfillment of all our longings” (73).

“All of this depends on trust. There is no way to differentiate the silence of condemnation and the silence of love without trust… This is not blind faith nor wishful thinking. We have good reason for this faith in Christian revelation (the Church, the Saints, Scripture, Sacraments)” (76).

Overcome fear of silence: “Sometimes we are held back by the fear that is is all real and that God will speak! Sometimes we resist silence because we are really resisting an encounter with God. Perhaps He will turn my life upside down. Perhaps I will lose my feeling of comfort or even my very self. Perhaps He will consume me and take away my freedom, and everything familiar will disappear. It is good to examine our hearts and not only ask whether I will hear anything but ask precisely, “What am I afraid that I will hear?” (90).

Stages of listening:

“The first stage of listening is just being aware of Him as we are sharing our hearts… not so much trying to hear what He is saying (ie. waiting for a word or sign) but simply becoming more aware of God’s loving attention towards us (ie. waiting in loving receptivity)” (44).

“The second stage of listening involves entering into silence” (45). As we open our hearts to the Lord and await some response, “we simply focus our loving attention on Him” (45).

• “As our relationship with God develops and becomes more personal, we become more aware of the ways that God responds to us personally, which may be different than the ways He responds to other people” (45). It may come in the form of a word, an image, a new insight, a feeling of peace, or just a deeper awareness of God’s loving presence.
• “[M]ore often He speaks in our thoughts and our voice in a way that seems not to have originated from ourselves and yet which we recognize as true and a part of ourselves” (290).

“As prayer develops, as with human relationships, the tendency over time is to move toward fewer words” (48).

• “God, like an attentive mother, is always listening. If we listen with the ears of our hearts, we will hear the word of the Lord and we will know Him in the abiding peace He gives us. Like a good mother who loves each of her children best, God loves each one of us as if each one of us were the only person in the world; He loves each one of us best!” (53).

3rd – Feelings & Faith

Feelings:

• Our feelings are part of being human. We should not try to suppress or control our feelings.
  • “Feelings are a meaningful part of our discernment of the authenticity of a religious experience, but by no means the sole determinant of that experience” (106).
• Our feelings can easily mislead us. Although our body is meant to express our soul, sin has now damaged this relationship.
  • Our feelings are not reliable indicators in assessing where God is or where we are in relation to Him. Do not take them as a serious indication of what is really going on, of how well prayer is going or of what God is doing.
  • “Sometimes our feelings tell us God is far away, but in fact God is never distant. He is always closer to me than I am to myself” (105).

Faith:

• Faith gathers up all our feelings and directs them to the Lord. Rather than trying to suppress or control our feelings, we need to allow our faith to take the focus off ourselves (and our feelings, which can lead to self-absorption) and puts it on the Lord (in prayer).
• “Ultimately, our emotions can be trained and transformed to become a powerful support to our virtues and part of a more perfect act of love, worship, hope or faith” (100).
• Feelings (emotions) are like docile children that must be taken by the hand and guided in the right direction (rather than wild horses).

“The point of prayer is not to produce feelings or experiences that I like or that are encouraging to me. The point of prayer is not even primarily what God has to say to me or what I have to say to Him. The point of prayer is a loving relationship with God” (104).