The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on August 15, 2025 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
In the Christian Ignatian discernment tradition, Saint Ignatius points to peace as a criterion, or indicator of consolation. If there is peace, it is consolation. He distinguishes, however, between deep peace and surface peace, or tranquility. So, for example, one can be at peace even if the surface of things is disturbed. Consolation, or peace for that matter, does not always feel good. An example could be the death of a loved one. Because of the disturbance of life as it was known, the loss of a beloved’s physical presence, mourners can feel a lot of disturbance on the surface of life, even as they feel a deep peace, or are consoled, perhaps, by the fact that their beloved is no longer suffering.
A similar parallel can be drawn about prayer, particularly petitionary prayer, in peace. On the surface, when we ask for things in prayer, we don’t always get what we ask for. This pattern causes many of us to stop asking, even to stop praying. However, “getting what you want” is a perspective on peace and prayer that sits at the surface of things. There is another perspective on prayer and peace. From the depths, we may ask for something in prayer but be OK with it not turning out how we thought. From the depths, we might see the “answer” to our prayers five years from now. From the depths, we might discover that we got even more than we asked for in prayer. The perspective of prayer from the place of deep peace leans into the “alreadiness” of God’s loving response to our prayers. The perspective of prayer from deep peace trusts that “all shall be well,” because all is already well when we are able to see reality in its depth and breadth.
May we have open hearts and eyes to see peace in our prayer!
