A Thinking Reed

Category: Prayer/Spirituality

  • Sane repetition

    I see that the Catholic webzine Godspy is up and running again (via Kevin Jones). One particular article I liked was blogger Eve Tushnet’s commendation of repetitive prayer. This hits home for me:

    In “falling back on” other people’s words I can admit that I can’t express myself very well, and I need help even to understand what I might want to say. Helplessness and a sense of terrible distance from God lend themselves naturally, I think, to these shy borrowings of others’ speech. (Jesus on the Cross uses the Psalmist’s words when He cries, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”)

    St. Josemaria Escriva touches on a similar theme in The Furrow, with added bite: “For those who use their intelligence and their study as a weapon, the Rosary is most effective, because this apparently monotonous way of beseeching Our Lady, as children do their mother, can destroy every seed of vainglory and pride.” So it isn’t only that the repeated prayers can help us when we already feel as weak and small as a child; it’s also that we need to put ourselves, voluntarily, in that state of spiritual littleness, overcoming our pride. It’s good to put aside our very own, special-snowflake words sometimes, and accept others’ words as an act of humility. The repetitions push us to recognize how much more there is in these humble words than we might initially realize. It’s good at times to pray patiently in a way we did not choose, and see what others’ practices can teach us.

    I notice that often when trying to pray “in my own words” I end up praying, not simply and directly, but in what I imagine to be “theologically correct” language, as though I’m trying to show off my knowledge and erudition to God. Which is, of course, completely ridiculous (not least because I don’t have much knowledge and erudition when it comes to theological matters).

    I’ve also found the Rosary in particular to be the best way for me to focus my prayers, not on my own needs, but on the great story of God’s love for us. By meditating on the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries I sometimes find that my own needs (or more often wants) which seemed so pressing are put in their proper perspective. Such prayers focused on what Christians believe to be God’s own story help, I think, to orient the self to reality, rather than trying to manipulate reality in service to the self.

  • Praying the Psalms with Luther

    Speaking of spiritual practices, I wanted to mention another little gem I picked up recently. Our Missouri-Synod brethren at Concordia Publishing have put together a little volume called Reading the Psalms with Luther. This consists of the entire Psalter (in the ESV translation) with each psalm prefaced by a short introduction from Luther’s work The Summaries of the Psalms and followed by a concluding prayer that “sums up” the psalm.

    For instance, today I read Psalm 50:

    Psalm 50 is a psalm of instruction that tells us of the true worship of God and true sacrifice in contrast to the false saints. They value their own sacrifices and worship highly, as if God must surely be thankful and indebted to them. God, however, reverses this. He intends for His goodness and help to be so highly esteemed that we will be thankful and indebted to Him.

    Likewise, when the psalm commands that vows be fulfilled, this does not mean absurd self-chosen vows, but those that are commanded in the Ten Commandments, especially in the First and Second–that we praise God, that we trust in Him, call on Him, praise and thank Him as our only God, and the like. Of this, the raving saints and the hypocrites know nothing.

    Mark well the clear words with which the psalm closes. The last verse teaches us that to call upon God in distress and thank Him is true worship, the most pleasing offering, and the right way to salvation.

    1 The Mighty One, God the Lord,
    speaks and summons the earth
    from the rising of the sun to its setting.

    2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
    God shines forth.

    3 Our God comes; he does not keep silence;
    before him is a devouring fire,
    around him a mighty tempest.

    4 He calls to the heavens above
    and to the earth, that he may judge his people:

    5 “Gather to me my faithful ones,
    who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”

    6 The heavens declare his righteousness,
    for God himself is judge! Selah

    7 “Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
    O Israel, I will testify against you.
    I am God, your God.

    8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
    your burnt offerings are continually before me.

    9 I will not accept a bull from your house
    or goats from your folds.

    10 For every beast of the forest is mine,
    the cattle on a thousand hills.

    11 I know all the birds of the hills,
    and all that moves in the field is mine.

    12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
    for the world and its fullness are mine.

    13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?

    14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
    and perform your vows to the Most High,

    15 and call upon me in the day of trouble;
    I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

    16 But to the wicked God says:
    “What right have you to recite my statutes
    or take my covenant on your lips?

    17 For you hate discipline,
    and you cast my words behind you.

    18 If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
    and you keep company with adulterers.

    19 “You give your mouth free rein for evil,
    and your tongue frames deceit.

    20 You sit and speak against your brother;
    you slander your own mother’s son.

    21 These things you have done, and I have been silent;
    you thought that I was one like yourself.
    But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

    22 “Mark this, then, you who forget God,
    lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!

    23 The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
    to one who orders his way rightly
    I will show the salvation of God!”

    PRAYER: Lord, our Savior, enlighten our eyes to know all Your mercies, and create in us such hearts that may be truly grateful to You. Forgive us our sins for the sake of the sacrifice of Your Son on the cross. Enlarge our hearts to walk in the way of Your Commandments, and to pay to You the sacred vow made in Holy Baptism. Amen.

    The Psalms as printed are pointed for singing, and there’s a brief introduction to singing the Psalms in the front of the book. It also includes schedules for praying the Psalms both in the Daily Office and for private devotion. This is a handy little book, especially if you want to pray with the Psalms but want a little guidance in doing so as a Christian.

  • Items of interest from the JLE

    From this month’s Journal of Lutheran Ethics:

    First, an article on the neglect of spiritual practices in the ELCA and how, if the church doesn’t offer pathways to intimacy with God, people will seek them elsewhere. I can definitely sympathize with this. As someone who (re)turned to Christian faith as a young(ish) adult I was expecting to be drilled in spiritual practices and other ways of deepening my faith. Alas, most of the ELCA congregations I’ve been associated with have scarcely mentioned, much less inculcated, intentional pracitces of prayer, fasting, spiritual reading and so on.

    That’s one of the reasons I’ll always be grateful for my year attending the Church of the Advent, an Anglo-Catholic parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. I was exposed to a very sacramental form of worship, the daily office, the rosary, and other spiritual practices that I’ve gotten a lot of nourishment from. Maybe as part of our full communion agreement with the Episcopal Church Lutherans will learn to be freer with borrowing form our Episcopal brothers and sisters, who seem to have preserved more of our shared heritage in this area from the undivided Western church.

    Second, a response from the former chaplain of Gustavus Adolphus College to Carl Braaten’s article from a couple of months ago (which I blogged on at some length here). This piece seeks to go beyond natural law and understand marriage, not as something that exists for purposes extrinsic to itself, but as a community that exists for its own sake as a union of two selves. I’m not sure I’d go all the way with this: doesn’t marriage, in Christian perspective, exist at least in part for the upbuilding of the community? But this in no way excludes same-sex couples, who manifestly do contribute to the upbuilding of communities of which they’re a part. If Christian marriage is partly a “school of sanctification,” then it seems to me that a Christian marriage should have an inherently “ecstatic” direction – the partners should be drawn out of themselves and give life to others. And this can have a variety of manifestations, including (but not limited to) the begetting and rearing of children.

  • Lord, teach us to pray

    This weekend we were visiting my family in my ancestral homeland of Western Pennsylvania. As is our habit, we attended the early service at the ELCA congregation in my hometown. This is a gem of a church and we always receive a warm welcome when we worship there, even though we don’t have a particular connection to the parish.

    Anyway, the pastor was on vacation but in his stead the ELCA bishop of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Synod, Ralph E. Jones, presided and preached. The Gospel lession was the story from Luke 11 where the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray and he responds by giving them the Lord’s Prayer as well as by telling them that their Heavenly Father is always ready to give them the gift of the Spirit.

    Bishop Jones’ sermon began with recounting a message he’d heard on a Christian radio station against the practice of “rote” pre-written prayers. God, the speaker suggested, wants prayers that come spontaneously “from our hearts.”

    However, Bp. Jones, good Lutheran that he apparently is, suggested, the problem with prayer “from the heart” is that our heart’s desires are often self-centered and misaligned with God’s will. What prayers like the Lord’s Prayer do through repeated use, he said, is form us in such a way that our thoughts and desires gradually come to be aligned with God’s will.

    As he put it, if I pray from my heart, I’ll spend a lot more time asking for things than praying for others or offering praise or thanksgiving. But the prayers of the Bible (and the tradition of the church) help us to readjust our vision and our priorities in line with God’s kingdom. C.S. Lewis wrote somewhere that pre-written prayers keep us in touch with “sound doctrine” and prevent our religion from becoming wholly privatized. I’m also reminded of Bonhoeffer’s dictum that our prayer should be rooted in God’s word, not in the poverty of our hearts.

    He also pointed out that, according to the Gospel text, the gift that God is always ready to give us when we ask in prayer is the Holy Spirit. Some Christians have been misled into the view that God will literally give us whatever we ask for if we have sufficient faith (this seems to be the root of some “prosperity gospel” preaching). But in this story at least, the gift of the Spirit seems to be chiefly what is promised. And the role of the Spirit is to form us into new people who love God and our neighbor.

    I don’t think this should be taken as an argument against “spontaneous” prayer or to say that we should only use pre-writter prayer forms. Personally most, though not the entirety, of my prayer life (pitiful as it is) consists of traditional prayers. I tend to think of prayers as tools for helping me to focus on God, and the great prayers of our tradition seem to me to do this best. This isn’t to say that Christians shouldn’t have recourse to spontaneous prayer, but I do think that Bp. Jones is right that those prayers need to be formed and directed by God as we believe he has revealed himself to us.

  • Office hours

    Derek of Haligweorc has a nice essay up at the new “Epsicopal Cafe” on the Daily Office and Anglican identity.

    I confess to having more or less fallen off the Daily Office wagon. What discipline I’ve managed to keep up has consisted of a Bible reading plan combined with a couple of Psalms each day framed by a few prayers from this book, so I guess I’m being somewhat true to the spirit of the Office. My rationale is that I find reading two or three very brief lessons rather disjointed and actually prefer a kind of lectio continua approach. I also just haven’t been able to make praying the Office twice a day work, which is really the way to go if you want to get the full effect of the standard BCP office. I find that a once-a-day time of prayer and Bible reading is about the best I can shoot for.

  • Prayer as remembrance

    Liturgical scholar Paul F. Bradshaw’s Two Ways of Praying argues for a reconnection between liturgy and spirituality which he contends have been separated in the Christian West. One of the reasons for this, he thinks, is that Christians have often been unclear about what exactly they’re doing when they pray. This is partly because there have been two “models” of liturgical prayer – the “cathedral” model which emphasizes communal praise and petition, and the “monastic” model which focuses on individual spiritual formation through prolonged meditation on biblical texts – which have not always been clearly distinguished and which call for different practices appropriate to their respective understandings of what prayer is for.

    Bradshaw’s point is not to argue for one form over the other, though he does seem to think that communal “cathedral” style praise has been neglected in favor of a more “monastic” understanding. But a balanced spiritual diet contains elements of both ways of praying. Meditative prayer such as lectio divina or praying the Rosary can and should co-exist with communal praise and petitionary prayer.

    The problem, Bradshaw thinks, is that the structure of various forms of liturgical prayer are often best suited for one form but are used for the other. For instance, the Daily Office in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer is geared toward the recitation of the entire psalter and a more or less continuous reading of scripture. This makes it more suitable for a “monastic” approach to prayer emphasizing spritual formation through exposure to and meditation upon scripture over time. But the same form may be less well suited to the function of a service of congregational worship, which may be better served by the frequent use of particular psalms or the repetition of key passages of Scripture.

    One concept that Bradshaw introduces which I found enligtening is that of prayer as anamnesis, or remembering. He traces this to two distinct forms of biblical prayer, the berakah and the hodayah. Both of these prayer forms include a recounting and acknowledgement of God’s mighty acts which takes the form of praise. An example of the former comes from Exodus 18:10-11: “Blessed be the LORD, who has delivered you from the Egyptians and from Pharaoh. Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods, because he delivered the people from the Egyptians, when they dealt arrogantly with them.” The hodayah, which comes from the Hebrew word hodah, meaning “thank” or “to acknowledge” or “to confess”. An example from Daniel, Chapter 2 runs “…To you, O God of my ancestors, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and power, and have now revealed to me what we asked of you, for you have revealed to us what the king ordered.” The Berakah blesses God for what he has done and the Hodayah thanks God, but both are forms of praise rooted in the remembrance of what God has done.

    These prayers of remembrance function, according to Bradshaw, as ways by which worshippers interpret their experience in religious terms, or we might say, place themselves within God’s story. The also act as confession or acknowledgement of God, proclamation, and consecration of our lives to God. Petition then becomes a natural outgrowth of the acknowledgement and confession of God’s character. “[A]ny intercessions that are added to this nucleus are merely the explicit articulation of what is already implicit in the act of remembrance itself–the desire that God will continue the salvific activity that has been recalled, and hence sanctify those for whom prayer is made and draw all things back into a right relationship with God” (p. 50). This form of prayer continues in the New Testament, primarily in the prayers of Jesus and Paul.

    In Bradshaw’s view, this form of praying serves as an antidote to egocentric forms of prayer that consist primarily of our own needs and wants:

    A recovery of the richness of the biblical heritage of our prayer tradition, therefore, can rescure us from such a subjective and potentially egocentric perception and enable us to see that much more than expressing gratitude is involved in a eucharistic pattern of prayer. Recalling to mind what God has done, we are interpreting our human experience in religious terms; we are making our credal confession of faith; we are proclaiming our gospel to the world; we are restoring ourselves and all creation to a relationship of holiness to God; and all this not for ourselves but so that God may be glorified. (p. 55)

    Liturgical prayer is ideally suited for this precisely because it puts our own prayers in the broader context of the prayers and confession of the entire church. For instance, both the Anglican daily office and Luther’s Small Catechism incorporate the creed as a part of daily prayer. “Praying” the creed may seem counterintuitive at first, but when prayer is understood as remembrance of God’s salvific actions it makes a lot more sense. Likewise, the meditation on scripture familiarizes us with God’s story and helps us to interpret our own experience as part of that story. In fact, this is a helpful way to think about the liturgical year: we call to mind and recount what God has done for us, seek to be incorporated into that story, and anticipate its consummation.

    This understanding of prayer is why Bradshaw sees the need for a recovery of “cathedral” prayer. Praise and intercession are at the heart of cathedral prayer, as a response to “God’s gracious actions in the world” (p. 120). In contrast to “monastic” forms of prayer, he thinks this might require a more selective use of psalmody and scripture reading and a greater attention to the seasons of the liturgical year. Ultimately, though, he thinks that “monastic” and “cathedral” elements are necessary for a balanced Christian spirituality.

  • A simple order of prayer to carry with you

    Recently I’ve been using David Adam’s The Rhythm of Life: Celtic Daily Prayer for, er, daily prayer. It’s a nice little easy-to-use office with certain “celtic” themes. But, unlike some attempts at celtic Christian spirituality it’s thoroughly grounded in Scripture and orthodox theology.

    There are four offices for each day of the week and each day has a particular theme, such as “Resurrection” for Sunday, “Crucifixion,” for Friday, etc. This has the added benefit of enabling you to use a particular day’s office(s) for the appropriate church seasons (e.g. the Sunday offices for Easter). In addition to the usual Psalms, readings, etc. there are celtic-inflected litanies and prayers composed by Adam, who is the vicar of St. Mary Anglican Church on the island of Lindisfarne off the coast of England, a location long associated with celtic Christianity.

    There is also an appendix with common Christian prayers, but what I discovered almost by accident is that the appendix by itself makes for a brief but rich order of prayer. Here are its contents in order:

    Gloria Patri

    Kyrie

    Prayer of Confession [e.g. from the Book of Common Prayer morning office]

    Gloria in Excelsis

    Apostle’s Creed

    Lord’s Prayer [my addition]

    Final blessing [e.g. “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us always.”]

    One of the benefits of this is that these are all prayers that many Christians will already have memorized, or are easily memorizable, and yet they cover all the bases, so to speak. It could therefore be prayed anywhere and anytime. You could also insert personal intercessions or other extemporaneous prayers at various points (between the creed and Lord’s Prayer, say).

  • Praying with St. Francis

    The venerable Massachusetts Bible Society bookstore in downtown Boston is closing its doors next month, and, consequently, they’re selling off their stock at discounted rates. Despite what the name might seem to imply, the MBS is actually something of a “progressive” Christian outfit.

    Anyway, I was in there yesterday and picked up a copy of the St. Francis Prayer Book, compiled by Jon Sweeney. Sweeney, who’s Episcopalian I think, has edited an edition of Paul Sabitier’s biography of St. Francis and written a book appreciating the saints from a Protestant perspective.

    The St. Francis Prayer Book consists primarily of a one-week daily office (morning and evening prayer) with a particularly Franciscan emphasis. The Psalms and readings (chiefly from the Gospels) are selected to reflect Franciscan spirituality, and they are framed by prayers attributed to him or his followers, as well as traditional prayers of the church. In addition, each day’s prayers and texts are chosen to reflect a particular theme such as detachment from possessions, peace in human relationships, and love for God’s creation that we associate with Francis.

    Sweeney also contributes a couple of historical essays about Francis’ approach to prayer, emphasizing the importance he placed on praying the Office, times of silence for listening to God, and meditating on the figure of Jesus as we have it in the Gospels. Sweeney also mentions the memorization of texts and prayers as particularly important in Francis’ time, and as something that modern Christians could stand to recover. This may be a place where the various simpler forms of the office now available may have an advantage; they enable us to enter more deeply into certain prayers and texts through repitition and memorization. The downside, of course, is that you aren’t exposed to the full sweep of Scripture as you would be in following, say, the daily lectionary of the Episcopal office.

    Naturally the test of any prayer book is actually using it to pray, which I haven’t done much of yet, but it’s a very nicely put together little book.

  • McPherson’s Grace at this Time

    Last week I read C.W. McPherson’s short book Grace at this Time, which is an explanation and commendation of the Daily Office as a form of daily prayer for Christians. The practice of the daily office – a structured form of daily prayer consisting of a prescribed order of psalms and readings with responses and prayers – can be traced back to early Christian practice and even arguably has roots in Judaism. McPherson gives a brief historical overview of the development of the office, tracing the evolution of “cathedral” and “monastic” forms of the office culminating with Thomas Cranmer’s reform of the monastic offices into the simplified morning and evening prayer services found in the Book of Common Prayer.

    McPherson provides a walk-through of morning prayer (which is, in his view, the paradigmatic office) as well as a brief theology and spirituality of the office. Though the office is designed as a form of corporate prayer, McPherson emphasizes its usefulness as a form of personal devotion. The office, he argues, provides a certain stability in our prayer life as well as keeping us from getting bogged down in subjectivity. It does this be mandating a disciplined encounter with the Bible (through the praying of the Psalms and the lectionary readings) and by connecting us to the rich theological and liturgical tradition of the church.

    One interesting point McPherson makes is that the office is compatible with a variety of spiritualities. For instance, he says, the psalms and lessons can be approached in the spirit of the monasitc practice of lectio divina. And he recommends introducing periods of silence for meditation and free prayer, especially when praying alone.

    If the publishing industry is any indication, lots of people from various traditons have found a new interest in praying some form of the office. There has been a proliferation of books about this form of prayer as well as various specialty versions (Celtic versions, versions for times of grieving, etc.). McPherson’s book is helpful in laying bare the structure that unites various forms of the office and why it takes the form that it does. In essence, it’s a conversation with God wherin we alternate between hearing God’s word and responding (often using the words of the Bible to do so, as in the canticles).

    The form of the office that McPherson recommends is that found in the current version of the US Book of Common Prayer, but most of what he says would apply to other versions just as well, at least as far as I can tell. I for one still find the BCP office a bit daunting in its rubrics and page-flipping, much less some of the more elaborate versions like the Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, or the Anglican Breviary. However, it’s hard to take exception to the prescription of a daily dose of psalmody and scripture readings framed by some of the classic prayers of the Christian church.

    There are a variety of simplified office books available, though most of them don’t seem to provide the range of scripture that one would get in using the BCP version. If one wanted to do a stripped-down version of the office one could simply follow the lectionary readings with appointed psalms and supplement them with the Lukan canticles, Lord’s Prayer, and perhaps the creed, though that wouldn’t get you the variety that the full version provides.

  • Reading the Bible

    Whew! Things have been getting pretty grim around here lately: war, abortion, stem cells, etc. Let’s change the subject.

    Here’s a question for you: How do you read the Bible? Assuming that you do, that is. Lately I’ve been following the daily lectionary from Oremus. On the plus side, this, like the BCP lectionary, gives you an OT, NT and Psalm reading for each day, each in digestible bits.

    One problem I’ve run into, though, is that, especially in the case of the OT books, I have a hard time getting much out of a given passage from, say, Jeremiah or 2 Samuel. I think this is because my familiarity with the OT isn’t nearly what it should be, so just dipping in more or less at random doesn’t work for me since I’m frequently unable to supply the context myself. I’m better at doing this with the NT, especially the Gospels.

    So, how about you? What approaches to incorporating regular Bible reading into your daily life have you found helpful? Or not? Do you prefer to follow a lectionary or continuously read through one book at a time?