The Saint

By Zoebelle Bean, Catholic editor

Father Bob (right) talking to students at the Moose – Photo by Gionna Bean

Campus Ministry took a more proactive approach to encouraging prayer within the Christian community with a talk by Father Bob Keller, O.P. on Sunday, Feb. 16 in the Moose. Fr. Bob talked about the importance of praying and his own experience with prayer and, at the end of the talk, Campus Ministry offered a free book called An Introduction to Prayer by Bishop Robert Barron. 

Father Jordan, O.P., opened the talk with a discussion about the book. “We encourage you to use Robert Barron’s book as a seven-week guide to prayer,” Father Jordan said. “We would love to see everyone get into groups and find the next step where God is leading us in relationship with prayer. Using this, we can help each other find God at work in our lives.”

He explained that prayer is not something you work out in the abstract, it’s something you learn through practice. It’s a relationship; it grows and changes and sometimes just shows up, but something that shows itself every day, and each of us is called to discover how prayer works in our lives.

Fr. Bob related prayer to a road trip. You begin the trip with a lot of talking, but as it gets longer, it gets quieter, you fall asleep and then you’ve arrived at your destination. Prayer life has various cycles, but sometimes things come in that weren’t planned and yet we still pray. According to Fr. Bob, he had five scenarios that changed his prayer life.

His first example of a change in his prayer life was as a child praying a rosary with his family. He was continually given a chance to lead the rosary and as he got older, it went from remembering how to say the mysteries to the technical elements of it. In the summertime too, he would have to say no to people to play with them because the rosary came first in his family. 

“‘Ten minutes’ became a code word. The rosary came first and then play, so what’s ten minutes?” Fr. Bob said.

His second example was the first girl he went steady with. After she left him, he realized he needed the help of his friends after that and went to Mass with them often. Yet, he would just show up without wanting to be there. That’s how prayer life can be sometimes, bone-dry or going through a heartache, but showing up despite things that happen internally. Prayer isn’t just feelings and sometimes showing up is the best we can do.

Fr. Bob’s third example of a time when his prayer life changed was when his mother had a still-born child and she experienced significant grief. Sometimes, all that can get you through is routines and prayer during the times of your life that feel dry.

Father Bob talking on stage – Photo by Zoebelle Bean

His fourth example was his time as a pharmacist, living in the Newman Center household and praying once a day with his roommates. Even after praying once a day, he would watch his roommate come down at 8:30 at night, sit in his room with no noise and then go to bed an hour later. Eventually, he asked him why he did this and the roommate said he engaged in meditation and silent prayer. This influenced Father Bob to change his prayer habits into silent prayer. “I’d been praying well enough, but he’d been doing it for an hour,” Father Bob said. “He’s a great example, and I realized that change is important, so I began to take it on and grow over time.”

His final example was his time in Denver as a Novice Master when he was reading about Teresa of Avila, Catherina of Siena and John of the Cross. This trio helped him gather a better sense of life for him. He had felt like he was snorkeling in the water, in his prayer life, but he felt the call to go deeper from these three people. “This was seventeen years ago,” Father Bob said, “but I’m still on this journey. It’s a deep invitation of the Lord…this is how I do the rosary now, trying to allow myself to let the Lord pull me down to the deeper level. I don’t have a clear idea of what that is yet, but I have to trust Christ.”

Many students who went to the Mass that evening also attended the talk and found it to be enriching. “I found Father Bob’s talk to be spiritually enriching,” freshman John Petty said. “It is one thing to know the ‘motions’ of prayer, but actually sitting down and praying often seems completely different. [The] talk provided a solid foundation for growing in prayer and, consequently, growing in action, as a joyful missionary disciple of Jesus Christ.”

There’s no value in saying whether prayer is good or bad, but all prayer, if it’s directed to God, is good. “We need to hold back on evaluating prayer so we can pray wholly,” Father Bob said. 

Today, Father Bob said he relates his prayer life to a sanctuary. There’s only two beings there: God, who made it, and ourselves. We visit this sanctuary and give our prayer life time to happen. Prayer is not a product, it’s a relationship.