Podcast Fr. Ed Hays on Prayer

Here are some great audio interviews on prayer from Fr Ed. Hays. Ed Hays has written several books I've enjoyed, including Prayers for a Domestic Church, Psalms for Zero Gravity: Prayers for Life's Emigrants, In Pursuit of the Great White Rabbit: Reflections on a Practical Spirituality, and most recently, Pray All Ways, a contemporary experience of Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God.

Ed Hays is the founder of Shantivanam (Forest of Peace), an ecumenical Christian retreat house of prayer hidden in the woods near Leavenworth in Easton. The current director of Shantivanam, Sr. Eileen Haynes, is a first-year student with me at Souljourners.

Episode 1: Learning to pray (24 min.)

When asked for a photo of himself, Fr. Edward Hays sent this "self-portrait."

Over the years, Fr. Hays has prayed alongside Jews at the Wailing Wall, beside Buddhists in ashrams and with Hindus in Himalayan caves. "The experiences opened me to the catholicity, the universality of prayer and of the search for holiness," he tells Tom Fox. What's necessary to see god? You must have a pure heart. Wow. I was blown away. It was the exact same words as Jesus. … That's only one small experience that I have found repeated over and over. A great truth that I had found in my own religion, could be found in other religions too."
He also talks about building a church in a horse barn (13:30). Fr. Hays says an addiction to storytelling is in human DNA. That's why Jesus taught in parables.

Episode 2: Finding the foundation of faith (18 min.)
Fifty years ago when he was ordained, Fr. Hays says, he objected to be called a "secular priest," meaning a diocesan priest and not an order priest. "Secular" seemed to mean unreligious, he said. "Today, I am delighted be called 'secular,' 'worldly,' because that is exactly what the Master was," he tells Tom Fox. "Jesus came to give us a secular, worldly way of loving God, serving God and even worshipping God."
Fr. Hays said he has tried to help people live and prayer in the real world. Fr. Hays then begins some capsule reviews of his many books.

Episode 3: Holy fools and clowns (30 min.)
"We'd have a far different church, if they had a court jester sitting at the foot of the papal throne making wish cracks at some of those solemn pronouncements," Fr. Hays tells Tom Fox. Fr. Hays continues talking about his books, one of which was mimeographed and shared clandestinely behind the Iron Curtain and another of which was read over the radio in Hong Kong.
Fr. Hays concludes the interview with this thought: "Any dream worth giving your life for that you can see in your lifetime isn't worth giving your life for. So you're always living out a dream, a hope, an aspiration, that you won't see, but if it's a great one and it's worth your life, then it's worth it."