There is a famous painting that I love. It’s called ‘The Praying Hands’ by the German artist Albrecht Drer, whose fondest dream was to be an artist. He had a friend, an older man, who also had an ambition to be a painter. In their early years, the two of them struggled together to stay alive by selling their works. The older painter probably realized that Drer was the more gifted and skilled artist so he proposed an arrangement – he would go out to work to earn for both of them while Drer continued to paint.
When they had saved enough funds from selling Drer’s paintings, the friend said that he wanted to take up painting again. Alas, by that time, he could no longer do it. He had developed enlarged joints and twisted fingers, which made it impossible for him to hold a paintbrush. One day, Drer saw his friend kneeling in prayer. He said, ‘I can never give back the skill in those hands, but I can show the world the feeling of love and gratitude which is in my heart for his noble deed.’ He did it by painting those hands clasped in prayer.
That work of art has inspired people all over the world and continues to serve as a touching homily on the virtues of sacrifice and gratitude.
‘Do you still pray?’ One of my close friends suddenly asked me out of the blue.
‘Yes, I still pray,’ I replied, but a little wary.
The truth is I wasn’t ready or in the mood to explain. For one, I never really reflected on the question, which caught me off guard. I had a feeling that he was really fishing.
Then I turned the tables. ‘How about you, do you still pray?’
My friend revealed that he was re-learning to pray the rosary. It was then that I sensed he was more interested in finding a reason or a justification to pray. He was mildly depressed about the current state of his life, having been abandoned by his wife while being estranged from his youngest son who was staying with him. I could understand he was seeking some sort of spiritual comfort.
My friend is not alone. I’ve noted that more and more seniors I’ve known are becoming prayerful. Is it because being in retirement, they now have more time on their hands and want to devote the remaining years to the salvation of their souls? It’s turning out that for those at the end of life, idleness is the workshop of the Sacred and not of the devil.
But it’s a good thing to reflect on. Praying. And from what I’ve learned it’s a healthful practice.
In childhood, like most of those who went to Catholic schools, I learned to pray the Hail Mary, the Angelus, the Rosary, Guardian Angel prayer, and so forth. I even memorized some prayer-songs and chants in Latin, such as Salve Regina, Tantum Ergo and O Salutaris Hostia.
But now in my septuagenarian years, my perspective on praying has evolved. I still recite some of the familiar prayers I learned in a grade school run by Benedictine nuns. They are embedded in my mind. However, they are now a means to an end or pegs for higher spirituality. Like the ‘om’ mantra recited by Eastern mystics, they set the mood, so to speak, enabling me to calm my mind and slow down my pulse for what the late Trappist monk Thomas Merton calls ‘our daily appointment with Mystery.’
When I recite the Rosary, which I still know by heart, I use the moments to contemplate mindfully on the virtues of humility and forgiveness, mystery of suffering, the continuity of life after death, and other deeper messages that spring from the ‘mysteries’ of the rosary.
Praying is a way to slow down and enter a space where you can listen more deeply to your life and recognize the Divine presence in the details of our everyday lives and be grateful for just being alive. From waking up to going to sleep, from eating and drinking to noticing beauty and natural wonders, praying is a way to say thank you – for breath, for food, for love, for life.
You don’t have to be religious to benefit from praying. All you need is an open heart, a moment of quiet, and a willingness to engage.
But here’s the good news about praying. One study, published in the Journal of Aging and Health, concludes that as people grow older, the more frequently they pray, the greater their sense of well-being.
Scientific research has recently discovered praying doesn’t just provide spiritual benefits, it can also be one of the simplest, most powerful habits for improving mental health, especially in late age.
There is an indication that praying protects our brain. How? Praying tends to lower stress and cortisol, which over the years can help protect brain regions like the hippocampus. It is actually a mental exercise, drawing on memory, language, and focus. For an older adult, this is hopeful. It means praying as a daily practice may be doing more for the mind than we realized.
For many seniors already living with creeping dementia, prayer is often one of the last things to remain reachable, a source of calm and identity when so much else has slipped away. There are reports of people with advanced dementia who can no longer hold an ordinary conversation but can still recite a familiar prayer learned in childhood. Such experiences are not necessarily medical miracles, a neurologist says. They may reflect the durability of deeply learned and repeatedly practiced memories.
I don’t want to go much into the science of it but the good thing that researchers have found out is that old people want their praying to be more personal, more private and an intimate direct relationship with a God Himself or a revered saint. Praying for them is spending time sharing their feelings, thoughts and dreams with Someone who loves them unconditionally.
Indeed, like the good old apple a day, a prayer a day is good medicine.
Let me end with a simple prayer, a keepsake, which sums up my life as an offering of gratitude, similar in tone to the ‘Praying Hands’ painting of Albrecht Drer. It was composed by my brother DOM Carlos, a Benedictine monk, who offered his life for the poor and downtrodden and became a Martial Law ‘desaparecido.’ It was his ‘mi ultimo adios.’
‘Lord, my Tax-collector
Here I am Your tax-payer
Now it’s your turn
To ask for the just tax
Let me pay these
Till the end of my life
Daily piling up
So that in the end
I may pay You all…’