When I cannot Pray - what should I do? In retreats and seminars on prayer I have come across a number of people of good will, who, in spite of their sincere efforts, are not able to pray or find it hard to remain in prayer. They feel frustrated and at times not knowing what to do, have eventually given up prayer. They feel themselves lost and totally abandoned by God.

Helplessness is a normal experience of hundreds and thousands who have been feeling that they really do not progress in prayer. When asked: how is your prayer life? Their simple and straightforward answer is “I cannot pray as I had been praying”. They are also, at the same time conscious that when prayer is sapless and not fruit bearing it affects their whole life.

The primary scope of this book is to encourage and give a few helpful guidelines to those who strongly feel that prayer has no relevance and meaning in their life. Many books have been written on prayer. This particular book does not pretend to give answers to all the problems in prayer, nor does it claim to offer absolute remedies to them. It is a humble attempt to understand the problem and make necessary efforts to live prayer with the awareness of the problem.

The book deals only with the active preparation on our part for prayer leading us to accept also the importance and the need for discernment of passivity in prayer. Real prayer is what God does in us. Yet we need an understanding as to when and how God leads us, and the right disposition to leave our own thinking and method of prayer in order to allow God to take full initiative in our prayer life. The suggestions given in this book help us to know how we need to prepare for prayer during the day in all our activities, in order to be effectively open to God while at prayer.

Here we offer also a few helpful psychological and practical tips on how to prepare ourselves for God-experience through active personal efforts. Prayer does not simply happen. It needs preparation. For example, that there may be a good crop we prepare the field, clean and manure it. Such a preparation is no guarantee that rain should fall to irrigate the field. We just prepare the ground, sow the seed and wait. We do not even exactly know how the seeds sprout and grow (cf. Mk 4.27). Likewise, for true prayer we need to do our part and wait patiently for God to act. We cannot force God into our prayer life.