DLT 1984 repr 1996 AJM
Sept 99
1. Towards simplicity
Prayer begins by asking; never outgrow it,
because it is an exercise of faith in God. Prayer of petition leads to prayer of thanksgiving;
and then to prayer of contrition -
because we realise we have duties to God - and then to prayer of praise, in which we outgrow self
altogether. These are the 4 main types of prayer; they coalesce into communion
with God, but the 4 elements are always present in man’s approach to God.
Need to make sovereignty of God the business of
our prayer; face God and dwell on him. Intimacy in prayer comes when we find we
can remain in communion with God without any particular desire to move on to
some business with him. As in a human relationship; more intimate once have
reached the stage of being comforable
in silence together. Wordless prayer risks boredom or fear of being ridiculous;
lots of words and formulae reassure.
2. To know God
Meditation (knowing about God) vs contemplative
prayer (knowing God). Anxieties about entering into contemplative prayer: we
are no longer in control of what happens; and faith is required to do it.
Contemplation brings no results in form of conclusions about God or self; and
hence great faith required to make time to do it in busy schedule.
3. Receptivity
True prayer is relational; but not between
equals. God is the potter, we the clay. Have to deliberately change gear at the
beginning of prayer and deliberately drop all desire to be in charge and to
know where we are going. Receptive is a better word than passive, because we
have to be active in our cooperation.
Prayer sometimes understoodd as an Experience. In
fact it is surrender to God, and its prime motive is service. We serve God in
prayer. His glory and his kingdom are paramount. The Experience he may see fit
to give us in prayer may be that of boredom...
4. Some theological considerations
Simple prayer is receptive; intuitive (process
not of reasoning but of simple knowledge which people have of each other when
they become intimate); personal (not thinking but relating). Theologically
speaking the exercise of prayer is an exercise of the virtues of faith, hope
and charity.
5. The gift of time
Giving of time to someone is the gift of self;
often we give advice or money instead, both of which effectively cut short the
process of engagement. One justification of time spent in prayer used to be
that it was valuable to do it’ but JD suggests prayer is in fact a ‘waste’ of
time. We do not pray in order to gain something for ourselves, but in order to
give something to God. It is sacrifice;
the language of love. As human relationships; we waste time with those we love,
but not with those we don’t. There is little common sense or prudence in the
adventure of prayer. It isn’t even always noticeably rewarding; may often be
dull and boring. But dryness in prayer is not dead end but threshold.
Recommends minimum period of half an hour at a time; 15 minutes wouldn’t do
with a person, nor will it with God.
Might prefer to organise prayer life on weekly rather than daily basis.
We always have time for the things and persons we know to be important. Need to
set aside specific time and place; we only learn to pray all the time
everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere.
6. Spiritual reading
Reading is an essential point of departure for
prayer; need to fill minds with reflection about supernatural realities before
we can begin. Surrounded as we are with
glittering superficialities presented to us by the media and by our day to day
meetings with fellow human beings, we need positively to decide to think about
God if we are to preserve a true sense of Reality in our lives. The most real
in this world is the most invisible; but because the most invisible the most
easily forgotten. Reading about these invisible realities of our Faith corrects
the tendency for our hold on the invisible to lessen. It feeds our minds with
the Truth. Hence monastic emphasis on lectio divina.
Read any book which helps you at the present
time. Also read Bible, listening both to human authors and to God.
7. Some methods
Lord’s Prayer
Jesus prayer
Short phrases: choose a few favourite expressions
and slowly repeat them to God (not to oneself about God)
Psalms
Discipline of body; good way of prayig is simply
to make self conscious of your breathing and to feel God’s creative spirit
being infused into you, natural and supernatural simultaneously.
8. Faith, not works
Test of the quality of your prayer is the quality
of your life - test is not how you feel during prayer. Prayer is the
articulated expression of our whole lives; we are to take the whole of our living,
in prayer and outside prayer, and present it to God as an offering subject to
his judgment. Wm Temple: not that conduct is supremely important and prayer
helps it, but that prayer is supremely important and conduct is its test. The
Christianity of the NT is not perfectionist but relational; prayer is the
attempt to relate our lives personally to God. Those who want a quiet and
undisturbed life are well advised to avoid taking prayer seriously.
Further consideration - as we come closer to God
it will appear that we are further away; because the masks of our false selves
are peeled away in the light of our meeting with God who is Truth. Light
reveals specks and blemishes not previously visible.
External success is poor test of action; world’s
redemption was effected by the colossal failure of Calvary, not the short-lived
success of Palm Sunday. We will never comprehend or please God in prayer; will
always be painful gap between our ideals and our achievement.
9. Poverty of spirit
A chief fruit of prayer is honesty about
ourselves, peeling away of false sense of achievement to reveal true self
dependent on God; equally imp is growth in poverty of spirit - unmasking this
time of hidden conditions in our surrender to God. We set up supports to fall
back on if God’s demands become too great; usu unconscious ones. Poverty of
spirit doesn’t mean having no possessions, but rather having what we possess
‘non-possessively’, as stewards. God comes to be seen as the one Absolute, all
else as relative.
Growth points:
-
material goods; gifts from God (keep creation/incarnation as well as
redemption); avoid letting them become necessities. Our society would like us
to find our identity in our possessions, in having rather than being. All who dedicate themselves to God in prayer
find that they become independent of consumer goods. Whether they have them or
not, they are free from the need to possess them; they can travel light through
life in the midst of the glittering plenty of the industrialized world.
Jesus as example.
-
spiritual possessions: immaterial things like job, status, reputation, power;
we cling to these even more tenaciously than we do to material things. Progress
in prayer can be gauged by the generosity with which we let go of these things.
-
human support: need for affirmation and acceptance. We must not cling possessively to the following good things, but must
remain grateful, contented but unattached: other people’s esteem, their notice,
their thanks, their understanding, the support, their encouragement, their
respect - in a word, community affirmation.
10. Liberation
2 meanings: from exernal restraint
: from internal compulsions
Internal
freedom is freedom not from a tyranny imposed on us by others but from the
tyranny of ourselves, our uncurbed passions and desires which enslave us no
less really than the secret police of an oppressive regime.
Both forms of liberation are part of Xtian
gospel; parallel aims. One goal of the
follower of Christ is freedom for all from external tyrannies. The other goal
is the internal freedom which for the Christian only comes from communion with
Christ. In terms of priority, this second goal is more important, according to
the gospel, even though in terms of time external liberation comes first. You do
not speak to a prisoner about internal peace. You free him. The urgency of the
NT writers is for the second, deeper, freedom. There is little urgency for the
first freedom...[slavery]... The
early Church left the struggle against slavery to a later date. It concetnrated
its urgency on the immediate struggle in the heart of every person against sin.
[Romans 7-8]
Another way of describing this liberation by
poverty of spirit is to say that we gradually become more inner directed;
values which are imp to us become internalized. For most people values are
external - achieve feeling of well-being thru work, possessions. For Christian
the journey to maturity is that from externalised values (doing, having) to
internalised ones (being). This liberation can be frightening.
Inner freedom shows in availability to others. I am only completely free when I am ready
for others to enter into my life at a time of their choosing, not mine, and can
do this without internal insecurity. [?!]
End point is intimacy with God. The fact that our treasure is to be found
secure in God himself and not insecurely in the passing events of this life
means that, as long as we keep our hearts fixed on that treasure, we will not
be anxious. Depending on where their treasures are, men and women are anxious
or peaceful.
11. Dark night
2 things happen: initiative in our spiritual life
passes from us to God
: God when he takes this initiative allows
us to suffer, esp in prayer.
Conversion of soul from worldly life to spiritual
life is at first superficial only; soul remains full of sinful tendencies, but
attaches them instead to spiritual not worldly objects. New convert remains
acquisitive, but for spiritual goods like grace and merit. (St John of the +).
Dark night frees us from emotional returns and visible results in prayer. Also
operates at deeper level of purpose and direction in life; this is strengthened
as the other is blocked - provided you don’t give up.
12. Cloud of Unknowing
Title of a 14th century spiritual
text. Author says that the created world must be put behind in a cloud of
forgetting; God in front in a cloud of unknowing.
WB Yeats poem on how we see God - moorfowl sees
him as the great moorfowl, peacock as great peacock. In other words, just as for a vegetable God could be portrayed as an
unimaginably marvellous Vegetable, for birds an unimaginably marvellous Bird
and for animals an unimaginably marvellous Animal, so untrained human beings
will tend to think of God as a marvellous, supernatural Person, ruling over
them from heaven. ... Exp of cloud of unknowing cures us of that.
13. Towards union
Mystics.
Created world as means of understanding God and
rising towards him. Francis. GManley Hopkins. This world both hides God and
reveals him at the same time.
Prayer as journey. Gradually we pass from
thinking of God as part of our life to the realization that we are part of his
life. Copernicus.
Prayer
leads us to Truth; so, sooner or later, the copernican change takes place.
Instead of granting God a place in my life, the realization dawns that he is
Creator and has granted a place to me in his life. The world belongs to him,
not me. I am in his world. I am an idea that he thinks up - not vice versa. I
wake up in the morning to his creation. God is, in fact, at the centre. He is
drawing me towards that centre, at his pace, in his time, according to his
will. When this realization dawns, prayer is seen in a new, more relaxed, way.
It is seen not as a work, an achievement, but much more as a letting go,
allowing God at the centre to do the work, becoming merely receptive to his
work in us.
Practical way of taking this on board: turn
common statements about God round. So ‘I need you’ becomes ‘God needs me’; ‘I
love you’ becomes ‘God loves me’. This won’t puff you up in pride but rather
capsize you in humility.