How do you pray?
For me, it’s eyes closed, whether I’m in bed, alone in a chapel, in a small faith group, or in a large Mass setting. Come to think of it, when I was at Fatima last fall, one of thousands of people at a Mass, I closed my eyes then too.
I was away from faith for decades, and after I first came back, the entire public God experience was overwhelmingly sensory for me. For a long time, I went to a Mass without music, initially because there were fewer people to see me mess up when to kneel and when to sit and when to stand, then later because music always made me sob out loud. Tunes like “The Servant Song” and “The Summons” seemed written especially for me, and I couldn’t make it through the Gloria without breaking down. Receiving the Eucharist had nearly the same effect.
What I learned was that if I kept my eyes closed, the tears didn’t flow as copiously. And that’s what I’ve done ever since.
An acquaintance once tried to embarrass me at a small chapel Mass a few years ago, “jokingly” threatening not to give me the Eucharist until I opened my eyes. “It’s better when you look,” he said with an authoritative air.
Well, maybe it is for him. But when I close my eyes in church, the music is closer. So is the water burbling in the baptismal font. And so is Christ.
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Often I close my eyes when I pray. Unless I’m driving or riding my bike. I pray alot while driving and biking.