Daniel Gullotta argues today that it's becoming increasingly difficult to pray in the post-enlightenment world. With so many giving up active participation in public liturgy there can be little doubt that prayer habits, and forms, are changing. Perhaps what Daniel writes in this reflection might be taken up in a wider discussion on Catholica about the forms and style of prayer that people find most efficacious in their lives today?

Prayer — an increasingly difficult activity?

Prayer, it seems, has become increasingly difficult in the post-englightment world. As modern people worshipping in a modern world, when we look to the sky we no longer see God in the heavens ready to hear our prayers. Rather, we see the vastness of space and how tiny our solar system is amongst the millions in our galaxy, and our galaxy is one of millions of galaxies. There appears to be a terrifying loneliness without the assertion that God is hovering above us. What does this call mean to us in the church of the 21st century? How might Christian communities answer that call today and what does it look like? This essay will explore the concept of prayer and St. Paul's call to "pray constantly" [1 Thess. 5:17] by observing the history of daily prayer, new insights into the prayer life of the church, how the Daily Office can aid in living out that challenge, and how Christian communities might answer that call today.

Bishop John A. T. Robinson was well aware of the expanding problems concerning the prayer life of the Church when he wrote, "For I am coming to be convinced that in this area the very word 'prayer' may be suffering for large numbers of people the same displacement and loss reality as the word 'God' — and for the same reasons. For 'prayer' is equated with making contact with this Being who has ceased to be anything but peripheral to men's deep sense of reality."[1] Yet, despite being a post-englightment world, why do we continue and still desire to pray? For the Christian person, it is because there is an innate drive within us to pray because of who and what we are. As people made in the image of God, we come from the very essence of God and we are intrinsically connected to God, and this connection urges us to communicate and communion with and within God. The Psalmist compares this drive and need of prayer to the primal urge for water:

Henri Nouwen: "prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence".

O God, you are my God;
eagerly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my flesh faints for you,
as in a barren and dry land
where there is no water. [Ps 63.1]

Dutch Catholic priest Henri Nouwen argues that prayer is an essential element of life itself, saying that "prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence."[2]

Daily prayer has always been a part of the Christian church. In the earliest days of Christian worship, various Jewish prayer customs had a strong appeal and already we can see evidence of the gradual development of private devotions for individuals. For example, the Didache advised the faithful to pray the Lord's Prayer three times a day, and drawing from the Psalms and Jewish customs, prayer took place during the morning and evening and up to seven times a day. Clearly prayer was central to the Christian life, so much so that Clement of Rome viewed that the true Christian "prays throughout his whole life."[3] As tradition grew, other church figures would suggest patterns and practices for the Christian life of prayer, drawing on the Trinity and the Apostles for inspiration.[4] According to Paul. F. Bradshaw,

"Daily prayer, therefore, is part of the privilege granted to those who are baptized to share in the continuing priestly ministry of Christ. Hence, the obligation to participate in this prayer springs not from some external rule but from the very nature of our Christian vocation itself...".[5]

We pray then because we pray with a Church which has always prayed, prays now, and will continue to pray. Our prayers are not just our prayers of today they are the prayers of the past and the prayers of the future.

Yet, while we have always done it and have a desire to do it, prayer is not easy to define as the term prayer has often been misinterpreted or misrepresented. This is the belief that through prayer we can ask/demand God to grant our desires, solve our problems, or fix the troubles of the world. John Shelby Spong has described this idea to what he has nick-named, "Santa-Claus theology"[6] or what N.T. Wright notes as describing God as a "divine Mr. Fix It".[7] The problem with this type of theological understanding is that prayer is viewed as some sort of magic incantation that allows us to manipulate God into doing our will. This model cannot be proper worship nor honest prayer. Matthew Fox points out this approach to prayer also shifts our responsibilities to our neighbours, ignoring their suffering and problems by simply offering prayers for them.[8] Prayer without action turns our prayers into empty words and when St. Paul claimed that we should never stop praying, this cannot be what he meant. So what meaning can be drawn such as phrase?

Prayer — becoming embodied in a person's being...

Eastern Orthodox spirituality draws heavily from what is known most commonly as the Jesus Prayer which goes, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner". The Jesus Prayer became popularised in the early nineteenth century through a novel, written by an anonymous author, entitled The Way of a Pilgrim. In the story, when the pilgrim heard the exhortation of St Paul to "pray without ceasing" the words became implanted in his mind; thus began his spiritual odyssey to seek out the answer to how it is possible to pray without ceasing. In the course of his journey, he met a "monk of the great habit" who taught him that ceaseless prayer is achieved through constant invocation of the holy name of Jesus. The pilgrim soon discovered that a disciplined regime of praying the Jesus Prayer led him to pray without ceasing. He learnt that ceaseless prayer is more than a literal recitation of the prayer twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Rather ceaseless prayer is a prayer of the mind in the heart that becomes embodied in the person's being. So much so that the person becomes the "prayer incarnate" and every action and interaction made by the person reflects the same values and characteristics exemplified by the subject of the prayer, Jesus Christ.[9]

The image used in today's headline comes from a wall painting in Rotterdam, by Brazilian artist Dante Horoiwa. Part of the Reflexo on Urban Art festival, which invited "10 Brazilian graffiti artists to paint huge walls in the streets of Rotterdam to show urban and contemporary Brazilian art". The image and this information has been sourced from www.brnrd.net/blog/archive/2009/ 09/08/praying_woman

With this understanding, we can begin to see prayer as more than just a dialogue with God. Rather, in the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola, prayer is "everything that one turns in the direction of God". Prayer is action, and this may be a freeing statement to people who think that prayer only happens in the context of church buildings and liturgies. In this sense, we become and live out our prayers, like God incarnate, we become prayer incarnate, that is, if we pray for peace — we must be peace makers; if we pray for justice in the world — we must be just people. Hans Küng describes God's movement in the world with these words, "God does not operate on the world from above of from outside but from within. God acts in the world process. God acts in, with, and among human beings and things. God is the source, the centre, and the goal of the world process."[10] It is then that we become prayer incarnate, we become that which we pray, we become in the immortal words of St Theresa of Avila, the hands, feet, eyes and ears of God.

A practical expression of this is communities being devoted to social justice and equality, offering the world love, forgiveness, and right relationship. Canadian pastor Gretta Vosper argues that when we start to understand 'God' as a verb we can use prayer to resemble a congregation's commitments and binding of ourselves to the work of living out those values. She says that the effects of prayer are that "When we live out the values of love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, we, too, incarnate god. Or, in different terms, when we love, we experience and express our fullest humanity – our divinity."[11] Another practical way of this being lived out in the life of the Church is by shifting the leadership in the prayers from the clergy to the laity. Hal Taussig notes that many congregations have recognised the power imbalance implicit in the offering of prayer by a single ordained person.[12] Thus, rather than relying on the clergy, congregations should rise up and offer their own personal prayers of joys and concerns, that the Prayers of People, truly do come from the people.

However, where does sin come in? If we strive to embody our prayers and become God incarnate to others, how can we acknowledge and forgive our sins and the sins of others? This is where we can learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters where sin is understood as "missing the mark" or "walking the tortuous road". Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel defines sin as, "the refusal of humans to become who we are", that is, God's children.[13] In our call to "pray constantly", we must also see this as a challenge. The capacity for us to sin is present and is always real. Matthew Fox identifies ten deadly sins of our time: injustice, severing relations, dualism, reductionism, lack of passion, misdirected love, dissipation of energy, and that which devours.[14] In our challenge to "pray constantly" we must always be seeking forgiveness for our short comings and when we "miss the mark", and the strength to carry on being all we can be to the world.

The Daily Office and intercessory prayer...

But what about intercessory prayers and the Daily Office in the life of the Church? Of course, prayer has a particular power to help us stand in solidarity with those in need. When someone is sick, dying, lonely, displaced etc. prayer is a way we can stand in solidarity with them. However, we must be ever mindful of falling into the trap of feeling that prayer in that context is the point in which we discharge our responsibility to our neighbours. Intercessory prayer full of praise and promise runs the risk of attempting to flatter God into doing what we want. Rather, intercessory prayer should be the activity that enables each of us, as a group gathered together, to be givers and receivers from one another. This may take the form of social justice, charity, or a simple act of compassion and love or in other acts of service to the world.

The Daily Office, like the Eucharist and other sacraments and services, help ground the Church in joining people together in common prayer and worship. Whether it is said by a Christian in private, or by a group of Christians meeting for the purpose of saying the office together, it is to be offered "with all of God's people".[15] Both private and public prayers are necessary to the devotion of the Christian life, but as the Daily Office is designed to be public, it has a more personal focus. It is designed to praise God in the midst of our daily lives. James White explains that

"it is a response not just to Word and Sacraments but to the totality of daily experience — the sun coming up, the squabbles in the family, the tedium of work... The ability to express ourselves in the setting of daily life makes daily public prayer distinctive."[16]

Thus, in the call to be "never ceasing in prayer" the Daily Office centres our daily lives in prayer thus sending us out to be prayerful people. It allows us to focus in on scripture, to take time out of our lives to centre ourselves in the divine, practice the art of mediation and contemplation, and pray for the world.

Prayer is journey and we only get stronger by practising, and the Daily Office can assist us in the worship life we lead. It, like meditation, Lectio Divina, and prayerful traditions, are not the means to an end as such. They are all stepping stones. The Daily Office is one of several ways of carrying us through times of difficulty, and gives us ways to ground the beginning and ending of our days. Yet the real importance of the Daily Office comes to life when we understand that prayer is not just an individual activity. It is corporate and communal. The Daily Office can bring us together as Church, without the need of a priest or holy objects but simply as brothers and sisters in Christ.

In conclusion, St. Paul's call to us to be "always praying" means that we must seek to be a God-presence in every relationship we enter. It means to live out our prayers and to be our prayers in the world. Through our prayers we can become transformed and start the process of transforming others and the world around as. Our lives become our prayers. Of course, this is no easy task. But like all things in the Christian journey, it takes a life time. It is a process of growing, learning, changing, and being transformed. Mistakes will be made, some practices will be failures, and at times it will all seem too difficult but prayer leaves us open to God. Prayer should not become habit, but rather, become natural, a part of us and our being, we can follow the wisdom of St. Anthony who wrote that, "The only real prayer is one where we are longer aware that we are praying!"

FOOTNOTES:
[1] John A. T. Robinson, Exploration into God (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1967), 111.
[2] Henri Nouwan, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 32.
[3] James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 132-133.
[4] Ibid., 133.
[5] Ed. Kenneth Stevenson & Bryan Spinks, The Identity of Anglican Worship (London: Cassell, 1991), 69-70.
[6] John Shelby Spong, Into the Whirlwind: The Future of the Church (Thornbury: Desbooks, 1983), 61.
[7] N.T. Wright, Simply Christian (London: SPCK, 2006), 51.
[8] Matthew Fox, Prayer: A Radical Response to Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1972), 4.
[9] Kallistos Ware, The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality (Oxford: SLG Press, 1974) 15.
[10] Hans Küng, On being a Christian (New York: Doubleday, 1968), 334.
[11] Gretta Vosper, With or Without God: Why the way we live is more important than what we believe (Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2008), 249.
[12] Hal Taussig, A New Spiritual Home: Progressive Christianity at the Grass Roots (Santa Rosa: Polebridge Press, 2006), 6.
[13] Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), 365.
[14] Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Lessons for Transforming Evil in Soul and Society (Goldenbridge: Gill & Macmillan Ltd., 2000), 158-160.
[15] Ed. Ronald C. D. Jasper, The Daily Office (London: SPCK, 1969), 15.
[16] White, Christian Worship, 146-147.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Fox, M. Prayer: A Radical Response to Life. New York: Paulist Press, 1972.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Lessons for Transforming Evil in Soul and Society. Goldenbridge: Gill & Macmillan Ltd., 2000.
Jasper, Ed., R. C. D. The Daily Office. London: SPCK, 1969.
Küng, H. On being a Christian. New York: Doubleday, 1968.
Nouwan, H .The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society. New York: Doubleday, 1979.
Robinson, J. A. T. Exploration into God. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1967.
Stevenson, Ed. J. & Spinks, B. The Identity of Anglican Worship. London: Cassell, 1991.
Spong, J. S. Into the Whirlwind: The Future of the Church. Thornbury: Desbooks, 1983.
Taussig, H. A New Spiritual Home: Progressive Christianity at the Grass Roots. Santa Rosa: Polebridge Press, 2006.
Vosper, G. With or Without God: Why the way we live is more important than what we believe. Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Ware, K. The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality. Oxford: SLG Press, 1974.
White, J. F. Introduction to Christian Worship. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000.
Wright, N. T. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006.
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