Monks Corner
Diocesan Press Service. August 8, 1974 [74206]
(Monks Corner is a monthly spiritual column prepared exclusively for the diocesan publications -- please do not print this material in any other publications.)
Article No. 1 (Suggested for September issues)
PRAYER PROBLEMS
By the Rev. Sydney Atkinson, O. H. C.
A good, brief definition of prayer is "conversation with God." Notice it is not talking to God. What would we think of a friend who did all the talking when we get together? And yet, isn't that often the way we treat God? When we pray: yes, we need to speak to God; but, perhaps more important, we need to listen to God. There should be times of listening, of silence, of waiting on Him. I am afraid that when many people hear the word "prayer," they think of "gimme." From childhood we have been taught to ask God for things. Prayers of petition and intercession fill out most of our prayer time. Again, what would we think of a friend who came and spoke to us only when he wanted something? The conversation of true friendship has little of the asking aspect. It is made up of shared experiences, being glad to be in each other's company, listening to each other, just being quiet in each other's presence. Let us try to make our prayer this kind of conversation with God. Meditation and contemplation should supersede petition and intercession. When we engage in petitions too much, we tend to get self-centered. As one wise old nun said, "Prayer can be a subtle way of thinking of one's self!"
Sometimes we find that the nice, proper words and phrases do not come to our lips and we find ourself falling back on well-known made-up or formal prayers. Do not worry about this. All of us, at one time or another, hit the bottom, get discouraged or frustrated, and we find we cannot pray. Then it is that formal prayers learned, perhaps, in our childhood, come to our lips. / / / (End here for 300 word article). Actually this is good practice. But many of us have been warned to look with suspicion on the use of formal prayers for personal devotion and to avoid "vain repetitions. " Well, our Lord Himself did these very things. When He was in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane we read that He prayed that the cup might pass from Him, "howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt. " (Mark 14:36). Then He returns to the disciples, finds them sleeping, wakens them and asks them to share His prayer. In the 39th verse we read, "And again he went away, and prayed, saying the same words. " While He hung on the cross we find Him using words that he must have learned along with other little Jewish lads in the synagogue at Nazareth, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" These are the opening words of Psalm 22 and much of the rest of the psalm fit the situation so that Jesus was using a liturgical prayer for a personal need. Let us not be afraid to use formal prayers and make them our own.
Part of the trouble rises from the unfortunate translation of Matthew 6:7 -- "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do. " This is the King James' Version which is familiar to many and it has made many people think that any repetitions in prayer are bad things. The Greek word here has the idea of babbling. In fact, both the New English Bible and the Jerusalem Bible use this word as a translation. What our Lord was warning his followers about was a common pagan practice of babbling all sorts of prayer formulas, hoping that they would hit upon the right one and so get power over the god they were praying to. This is magic and our Lord and all good Christians have always denied that prayer is magic.
It is good to have a kind of arsenal of dart prayers: little pithy prayers or aspirations which express what we are trying to say better than we can under the circumstances and, very often, in the depths of our trouble, we can do little more than say the same thing over and over again. " Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. " "Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful people. " The Eastern Orthodox have their famous Jesus Prayer: "Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me. " Or just the simple Holy Name itself, " Jesus."
Once in a little town in Texas, I had been giving a talk on prayer, and a lady came up to me afterwards and said, " Father, I know just what you mean. " A few weeks before she and her husband were wakened by the telephone in the middle of the night. A friend had called to tell them that she had awakened and found her husband dead in bed beside her. Her friends rushed over to her home, called the doctor and the undertaker. Finally, after the dead man's body had been removed, the doctor went over to the grief stricken woman who was going back and forth in her rocking chair and repeating the Holy Name. He asked her, " Wouldn't you like me to give you a sedative ?" "No," she replied, " Jesus and I must see this thing through together. " Here is no prayer of escapism, but of triumphant trust.
Article No. 2 (Suggested for September issues)
THE CALL TO BE THE CHURCH
By the Rev. J. Brian McHugh, OHC
It seems to me that, without question, the Holy Spirit has been very much at work these last few years. In many ways, of course. But particularly He has been re-teaching the Church its responsibilities as the Body of Christ.
From the picture we see of New Testament life, it is clear that Jesus meant His followers, as a community composed of persons made strong by their unity in Him, each to be a bearer of the Father's gifts. Simply look at the N. T. Churches in the Epistles; filled with the love of God in Jesus, men and women worked wonders.
Unfortunately, due to many circumstances, the Church often falls into various forms of clericalism. Few things could be more destructive to the power of the Church's life. When, for whatever reasons (and there is no point in pointing fingers; that only permits an evasion of the problem) a few people are expected or expect to live the Gospel mission for all the "nominal" others, our witness to the healing and saving Gospel is very weak, if not highly detrimental. And God's plan is hindered.
Now, as in so many other ages, the laity cannot leave the witnessing to the clergy because they are "too busy; that's what we pay him for." Bishops, Priests and Deacons are meant to be strengtheners and feeders of the Flock -- not substitutes for them! And the ordained are meant to take their servanthood seriously, and not minimize it in order to get the administrative and what-not-else done . . . things that the Christian Churchman should be doing.
The fact stands: the impact of the Gospel in the world today is not strong, and the name of the God of Love does not stir men's minds to charity and peace.
But the Spirit is working. In the liturgical movement, and in many other places, we are discovering, hearing the call to a renewed life. Yes, we must work in the world. But we Christians are too easily seduced into playing the games: cocktail parties, ball games, business, luncheons, etc. -- too much of this and we are no longer worshiping together or at all.
The Spirit calls us to prayer, to exploration of the Scriptures and a reaching out to God. He calls us to examine our commitment (freely made in response to God's very Being in love) to Jesus and to his world. And then to seek the oneness in God for which Christ prayed: to find more time to extend the healing and helping power of Christ to his people. If we ask Him, He will fill us with Himself, with His joy and power and with faith. When we can give generously of those gifts, the world will see again God reaching out in love.