Ben Sternke

Field notes on life and mission with God after Christendom

prayer

Prayer That Holds the World Together

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Scott Cairns has a lovely book of poems called Endless Life: Poems of the Mystics, where he “riffs” on the writings of early church fathers and mothers.

I was especially struck this morning by this poem, simply entitled “Prayer,” rooted in the writings of St. John of the Ladder:

By its very nature, prayer
avails both our conversation
and our union with God.

Its sure effect is (notice now!) to hold
the world together. Prayer
is both the mother and the daughter

of our tears, and occasions
expiation of all sin. It is a bridge
across temptation and a wall

against affliction, both a future
joy and a present act, endlessly
opening to a flood of graces.

On Jesus Being Very Moved

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In Matthew 20:29-34, Jesus is leaving Jericho with a large crowd in tow. Just outside town, two blind men are sitting by the roadside, and when they hear that it’s Jesus who is passing by, they begin crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

They’re told to be quiet, but they cry out all the louder, desperate for the attention of the Healer they will likely never see again if they don’t flag him down.

Jesus hears them, and stops in his tracks.

“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Master, we want you to open our eyes.”

After they answer him, the text says that “Jesus was very moved.” Not when he first saw them, but after they answered his (obvious?) question.

There’s something about the interaction that moves Jesus. Something about the connection and communion it represents. Something about their simple trust in him to be good enough to take the time to heal a couple nobodies on his way to more important things… something about this deeply moves Jesus.

He touches their eyes so they can see again, and they followed him.

I imagine something like this happening every time we turn to God in prayer for our needs. Something is deeply moving to God about the fact that we would invest the time and energy to tell him what we’d like for him to do for us. That we would trust him to be good enough to care and act for our flourishing is deeply moving to God.

Our Humble Complaint

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These words from Dame Julian of Norwich really landed for me the other day (she talks often of Jesus as our “Mother,” FYI):

We make our humble complaint to our beloved Mother, and he sprinkles us with his precious blood, and makes our soul pliable and tender, and restores us to our full beauty in course of time… And then the true meaning of those lovely words will be made known to us, ‘It is all going to be all right. You will see for yourself that everything is going to be all right.’

In the midst of our new awareness of the chaos of the world right now, these words are comforting.

I also keep bringing my “humble complaint” to Jesus, my “beloved Mother,” praying that the future all-rightness of the world will continue to manifest itself in the present, in my relationships and in our world.

Above the Weary Round of Harassing Thoughts

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I’ve really connected with this prayer from Edward Pusey, one of the leading figures of the Oxford Movement in the 19th century. I’ve begun to use it as a gateway into contemplative prayer.

Let me not seek out of Thee what I can only find in Thee; peace and rest and joy and bliss, which abide only in Thy abiding joy. Lift up my soul above the weary round of harassing thoughts to Thy Eternal Presence. Lift up my soul to the pure, bright, clear, serene, radiant atmosphere of Thy Presence, that there I may breathe freely, there repose in Thy love, there be at rest from myself and from all things that weary me; and thence return, arrayed in Thy peace, to do and bear what shall please Thee.

Edward Pusey, from Private Prayers, 12th ed., p. 39

The Importance of Preparing to Pray

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This morning in my daily readings from the church fathers there was a passage from Origen’s Treatise on Prayer. He spoke of the importance of preparing to pray, and the difference it can make in the life of the one who prays in the this way.

No one can think of devoting time to prayer without being purified, no more than one will imagine that those who pray can obtain the pardon of their sins unless they have first wholeheartedly forgiven the brothers and sisters who ask for their pardon.

Origen

Preparing to pray, then, he later says, involves forgiving anyone who has offended me, and banishing my “irritation at others.” This is why I see a lot of wisdom in placing the confession and absolution at the beginning of morning and evening prayer. I find the sins I’m most aware of within myself are the seemingly “small” issues of uncharitable thoughts and an irritable attitude toward others.

When we come to prayer with this kind of disposition, “banishing whatever troubles the soul,” we find ourselves in an “attitude of prayer which places [us] in God’s presence and engages [us] to pray to him as someone who is present and looking at them.”

We steadily learn, in other words, to live in the awareness of God’s presence and his deep knowledge of us. God becomes the preoccupation of our minds, to our great benefit: we “avoid many sins” in this way, and “many good deeds are carried out.” Holiness of life flows naturally from this kind of prayer.

Prayer, then, is a much deeper practice than just saying the right words at the right time. It is a practice of personal connection, a fully awake engaging of the heart and soul with God in receiving God’s love and letting it flow back to God. We enter into this kind of prayer only through the work of purification and preparation for prayer.

I realize that it is very easy for me to just stumble into prayer, and while I’m grateful that the words of the liturgy carry me along when I’m not “feeling it,” I also realize that taking a few seconds to prepare for prayer will likely be very fruitful for me. This means allowing myself to become aware of irritable thoughts and feelings, and letting go of them through through confession, absolution, and forgiveness.