Newsletter N. 4/26 – How and why did you pray?

Learn to pray through your deeds rather than with your lips 
cfr. Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks of 1943, pp. 340-341 (October 1, 1943)

Praying with deeds rather than with words means transforming prayer from mere spoken words into a life lived before God. This is not a call to disregard spoken prayers, nor to remain silent before the Lord. Words have their value when they express a sincere heart. But they become insufficient—and even empty—when they speak of love while one’s life continues to be marked by selfishness, harshness, pride, sensuality, hypocrisy, or indifference. True prayer is measured not only by what is said, but by how much one changes.

This distinction emerges clearly in Maria Valtorta’s writings. One can pray, attend church, fast, and avoid certain outward sins, and yet not be truly united with God. The decisive question is not merely, “Have you prayed?” but “How and why have you prayed?” A prayer offered with an absent soul, or with a soul tainted by hatred, or almost always for personal gain, remains a prayer separated from charity. And if charity is lacking, the spiritual chalice capable of bringing the offering before God is missing. Prayer, then, does not rise as love: it remains weighed down by the contradiction between what is said and what one is.

Praying through deeds means, first and foremost, putting the heart back at the center. It is not enough to say “Lord, Lord” if we do not then perform the deeds the Lord asks of us. Religious words can become a cover-up if the heart does not truly belong to God. It is possible to honor God with one’s lips, while at the same time allowing other idols to reign within oneself: pride, hardness of heart, self-seeking, the desire for domination, and attachment to the senses. In this case, the mouth seems to be praying, but the heart is elsewhere. Deeds, on the other hand, reveal where the heart truly lies.

This is why the text links authentic prayer to “another kind of fasting.” Not just fasting from food, but fasting from the senses, from harsh words, from judgments, and from actions that hurt others. The expression that it is better to fast from a harsh word than from a sumptuous meal is very powerful. Here, spirituality becomes concrete. Sacrifice is not merely about removing something from the table, but about removing poison from the tongue, harshness from one’s actions, selfishness from one’s intentions, sensuality from one’s gaze, and resentment from one’s memory. An outward fast can coexist with an unconverted heart; an inward fast, on the other hand, compels a person to truly change.

Praying through good deeds also means stopping doing good merely out of fear. The texts clearly distinguish between avoiding evil out of fear of punishment and avoiding evil out of love for God. One may refrain from stealing or killing out of fear of human laws, yet continue to steal spiritually, destroy a person’s reputation, lead a soul into evil, rob a family of peace, and inflict harm slowly and deliberately. Prayer through deeds comes into play precisely here: in justice lived out, in charity practiced, in concrete respect for the souls of others. It is not enough to refrain from committing visible crimes; one must also stop committing invisible acts of violence.

The prayer of the lips says, “Forgive me.” The prayer of deeds begins when a person truly allows himself to be transformed by repentance. Telling God that one is repentant, yet continuing to love one’s sin, is not yet conversion. The work of conversion is to remove from the heart whatever prevents God from reigning there. In Maria Valtorta’s writings, she speaks of pride that prevents the heart from breaking in sorrow over having offended God, of lack of self-control that prevents pure thoughts, and of hardness of heart that prevents mercy. Praying through deeds means fighting precisely these obstacles: becoming humble, pure, and merciful.

In this sense, every day can become a prayer. It is a prayer to hold back a harsh response when pride would have us hurt someone. It is a prayer to renounce an impure thought when the senses demand to be satisfied. It is prayer to forgive rather than hold onto resentment. It is prayer to serve unseen, to correct without humiliating, to remain silent so as not to fuel evil, to speak up to defend the truth, to work with honesty, to endure with patience, and to love without calculation. These deeds do not replace prayer: they embody it.

The lips may say, “I love you, Lord.” But our deeds answer the question: “Is that true?” If I love God, I cannot hate my brother; if I seek God, I cannot constantly seek myself; if I ask for mercy, I cannot deny it to others; if I call for purity, I cannot willingly nurture what defiles me; if I ask for deliverance from evil, I cannot continue to open the door to it through disordered habits, words, and desires.

Praying through deeds rather than with words is therefore a spirituality of unity: unity between the mouth and the heart, between worship and life, between repentance and change, between professed love and love in action. Words are the beginning, but they must not stand alone. True prayer descends into the heart, purifies the will, governs the senses, changes one’s way of acting, and becomes charity. Thus, a person does not pray only when reciting formulas; he prays when he lives according to God.

The big question, then, is not whether we pray enough with words, but whether our deeds confirm or contradict our words. If they confirm them, even the smallest gesture becomes prayer. If they contradict them, even the most devout words risk remaining empty. Praying through our deeds means allowing God to move from our lips into our lives.

— fr. Andrea C.

[This text was automatically translated by Deepl.com – quotes included]