What if prayer is not only something you do?

What if, slowly, you become prayer?

There is a line in the catechism chapter of this week that has stayed with me:

“We become prayer, for we stand before God, open to Him totally.”

Perhaps this is part of what it means to enter the spiritual life.

Not simply adding more spiritual practices to an already crowded existence, but allowing our entire life to become increasingly turned toward God.

And the Eastern Christian tradition gives us a surprisingly embodied way of entering that movement:

Fasting empties us.
Prayer fills us with God.
Almsgiving allows His life to flow through us toward others.

Emptying. Receiving. Giving.

The spiritual life becomes a continual movement of repentance — metanoia — in which we turn again and again from the false centers of our lives toward the One who is actually our Life.

Perhaps, then, the question is not simply:

How often do I pray?

But:

Is my life itself becoming prayer?

I continue my journey through Eastern Christian spirituality with Fr. Ed from St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church in New York.

This time, I’m sharing from Chapter 2 of The Mystery Lived — Entering the Spiritual Life, which explores repentance, the Mysteries of Initiation, fasting, prayer, almsgiving, spiritual guidance, and how these practices gradually draw our whole being into communion with God.

Below, I’ll share my reading notes, reflections, and the questions and conversations that emerged during this catechism meeting.