If there’s one glaring absence I see in the modern Catholic Church (in the west, at least), it’s that we spend far more time telling people what to do and what to believe (or, worse, telling them to do and believe what they like) than how to love God. Morality and doctrine matter, of course. After all, how can you know God if you don’t know anything about him? And how can you love God if nobody’s told you what he asks of you? But most of us—even those of us who have spent years and years following him—have never been taught how to pray. We’re told to go to Mass and possibly handed a pamphlet on the rosary and then our pastors and teachers wash their hands of it and go back to whatever good or useless lesson they were teaching.
I’m guilty of it myself. There’s so much to learn about the faith that it’s awfully hard to take time out of the classroom to spend it in the school of prayer. I always figured if I could keep them Catholic by defending the faith beyond possibility of attack, someone else would teach them. But with rare exception, nobody really does.
The trouble with teaching prayer is that it’s hard. It’s hard because prayer is hard, but also because there’s no systematic way to do it. There’s no one-size-fits-all style of prayer. And while the Mass is certainly the highest form of prayer, other devotions can’t really be ranked in effectiveness or importance. So, what? Throw everything at people and see what sticks?
Well, yes and no. For all I play up the importance of the Examen when I speak, I know that it’s not as easy as just saying, “Tell God about your day and then you’ll be a saint.” Prayer is much more complicated than that—and, as it turns out, much more individualized.
Because I’m particularly self-centered, I assume that everyone is (or ought to be) just like me. As it turns out, though, God has made all different kinds of people. And just as different kinds of people learn differently or relate differently or love differently, they also pray differently. Some people pray really well with Scripture. Others need to find God in creation. No, really—this isn’t some hippie cop-out about meeting God in nature (as I may have assumed for several years). It’s an ancient expression of spirituality and a genuine encounter with the divine, just as much as the Rosary or the Liturgy of the Hours.
Last fall, Fr. Stephen Billington1 handed me a copy of a book to flip through, thinking I might find it interesting. The cover of Prayer and Temperament had me thinking it might not be the most helpful book I’d ever encountered, but I flipped to my personality type to give it a shot. There I found a minute-by-minute description of my prayer regimen. So I looked at the Bible passages it recommended; I had fully half of them memorized already. That’s when I began to think this book might have something to offer.
Prayer and Temperament, by Fr. Chester P. Michael and Marie C. Norrisey, uses the Myers-Briggs personality types to explain how different people might profit more from certain types of spirituality. It’s a fascinating read, although I would recommend skipping the chapter on liturgy entirely and remembering throughout that the book was published in 1984 and is occasionally quite dated.2 It’s certainly worth picking up a copy just for the prayer suggestions, which I won’t be able to reproduce in full here.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing a summary of the authors’ findings in an attempt to help you all discover styles of prayer that you’ll find more fruitful. Many of us, I think, expect prayer to follow a particular model. When that model proves frustrating and fruitless, we abandon any serious attempt at prayer. My hope is that this series (and the book, if you’re inclined to read the whole thing) will help you to find the way that you/your children/your spouse/your students/your friends pray best and that in doing so you come to a deeper love of the God who loves you more than you will ever know.
So if you haven’t taken the Myers-Briggs personality test recently, click over to this one (or recommend a more accurate one in the comments). According to Michael and Norrissey, there are four major schools of spirituality, determined by your MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). These types are SJ (ESFJ, ISFJ, ESTJ, ISTJ), NT (ENTJ, INTJ, ENTP, INTP), SP (ESTP, ISTP, ESFP, ISFP), and NF (ENFJ, INFJ, ENFP, INFP). For a little clarification on the vocabulary, S stands for sensing, perceiving via the senses rather than intuition, and N for intuition. F is for feeling as opposed to T for thinking, a distinction about how decisions are reached. Finally, J is for judging, those who tend to see situations objectively, while P (perceiving) takes people and situations into account when making a judgment call.3
Take the test to figure out where you fall, then read on and prepare to be amazed. (Or, if you can’t wait for it all to be published, listen to the podcast explaining it all.)
Ignatian prayer, Augustinian prayer, Thomistic prayer, Franciscan prayer
- Whose house I’m actually at right now. [↩]
- Theologically dated, which is an odd thing to say but quite true. [↩]
- I’m really no expert on this, so hopefully my attempt to put it all in layman’s terms isn’t entirely inaccurate. [↩]
Which category do you fall into? Mine seems to be NT, but I’m always in danger, I think, of over intellectualizing (can you say that?) prayer and making it into a thought exercise/experiment. No advice, by chance?
Also.. Adoration/praise is prob the hardest. I feel like I’m parroting things other people say. Unless it’s off the cuff/spontaneously, but that happens pretty rarely. Certainly not daily. Peter Kreeft claims that adoration should make up the bulk of one’s prayer, but it seems like it is the least in mine.. I feel like if I don’t ask for everysingleperson I can potentially carry any responsibility for to be led the way they should, without forgetting anything, that I’ve been slacking, and by the time that and the readings are done, I’ve run out of time! (Well. And a chapter or two of Francis de Sales, who is the best ever and who insists that prayer not interfere with the wife/mother vocation, so I try and listen to him and not use more prayer time as an excuse to ignore my breakfast-making/kid-parenting duties.)
I’m right on the border between INFJ and ISFJ (I’ve taken a bunch of Myers-Briggs tests, and it’s almost exactly a 50-50 split which one comes up, with at least one of them saying it’s too close to call); do they say anything about people who don’t neatly fit in one of the four groups?
That is a great book! Thanks for these posts, I am sure they will bring clarity and help to a lot of people!
I love this book. Like Meg said it’s a bit dated and there have been great advancements in research done in the field of Type over the past 30 years since the original printing of this book, but many nuggets can still be found in it. As a Type dynamics trainer, specializing in personality-based profiling, I am aware of the plethora of free online tests, which unfortunately have an accuracy rate of *less* than 50%, with the exception of this test… https://bit.ly/2xityQu.
I know this company personally and they have put a lot of time, effort and expertise into how they designed their test. It’s not perfect but during post verification sessions I have found the accuracy rate is much higher than any other online free test to date.
Great series Meg. Thank you!
This is great! This is an informative one to some people who need this info like me. Keep posting!
Subject: Endorsement Request – PRAYER AND TEMPERAMENT BY Msgr. Chester Michael
Message: During an online search, I came across your blog PIERCED HANDS referring to Monsignor Chester Michael’s “Prayer & Temperament: Different Prayer Forms for Different Personality Types.”
Given this, I am reaching out to see if you would be willing to write an endorsement for the 30th anniversary of the book.
The board of the Open Door, which continues Father Michael’s work, is in the process of publishing a 3rd edition with new cover art and updated text and foreword and would love for you to be a part of our effort. Despite little to any promotion, there have been hundreds of thousands of copies sold, and it is still sought after particularly for classes and workshops, spiritual direction and training as it examines the connection between personality types (Jung, Myers-Briggs, Keirsey-Bates) and prayer and spirituality.
I’m available to answer any questions; I presume you have a copy of the existing text but let me know if that is not the case.
As we are on a timeline to hit that 30th anniversary, please let me know by June 10 if you would consider writing an endorsement of a couple sentences, which we would need on or before July 16. Thank you!
In peace,
Janet Centini
On behalf of the Open Door Board
opendoorsdi.org
—
Janet Centini
Hi Meg,
Thank you for posting this information. While i appreciate the Myers/ Briggs test, my main concern is that often the concept of how one feels for many people has become a final arbiter of truth. The way that the Myers/Briggs test is presented is that all ways of thought are equally valid.
Of course, this isn’t true. For instance, perhaps a husband and wife are going through a rough patch. He isn’t getting much affection from her and she has become jaded to his weaknesses. However, at his office is a woman that hangs on his every word and tells him he is the best. Without a doubt, that man is going to develop strong feelings for the woman at the office. If he lets his feelings dictate his actions, he will likely divorce his wife and take up living with the woman at the office. THIS IS GRAVELY IMMORAL. Reason tells him he made a vow to be faithful until death and so he should abide by it!
The “trust your feelings ” crowd would say otherwise.
God bless!
uhm what ?