About Christian Prayer
Catherine Young
Prayer is not what we do, it is who we are. As St Benedict said, Laborare est orare; to work is to pray.
We can pray where and how we like, wearing what we like; even stark naked would not shock God in the least. He would rather we prayed naked than not at all. There are many things which are not particularly sinful, and God is not bothered whether we do them or not. However, if any one of us at any time considers a particular behaviour, and then decides to offer that behaviour to God as a sign of obedience to him, then he will certainly bless that offering. Not because we effect our own salvation by doing so, but that we bow to his sovereignty, and doing that is good for our soul. God doesn't need our worship; we need it.
If we look at Christ, we see a man of prayer. He did not stop what he was doing five times a day to pray, he prayed continually; at every moment of his waking and sleeping life he was in a state of prayer, his attention always on God and his will for all of creation. This is the ideal for a Christian to aim for.
If you look at any Christian saint whose life you admire, you will see all sorts of achievements; churches built, the sick tended, great mysteries explained. But in the process, you will not see a division between when these saints are praying, and when they are not. What you will see is a person whose attention is given to God every moment of every day; their whole existence has become one of prayer, where their soul is never out of communion with God. When they are alone, God is with them. When they talk with other people, God is with them.
This is the meaning of Emmanuel; this is Christ’s gift to us through his Spirit. Christ's spirit is not just here for our comfort, it is also here to allow constant and unceasing communion with God; the same unceasing communion enjoyed by the saints and angels in heaven. Their prayer is constant and unceasing, and ours joins with theirs at every moment. We never pray alone, but always alongside the whole company of heaven, a legion of angels joining in our every 'amen', and bowing to God's throne with us, perfecting our imperfections, and completing our incompleteness. However faltering our words and thoughts, they are received by God as perfect, through the communion of saints.
Prayer is a state of being; it is when our soul is faced towards our creator, as he is always faced towards us. It is a state of communion, when our will always seeks his will first, and tries to do what he would have us do. It is not about making a list of requests, treating God as Santa Claus and sending him our wish list up the chimney, but about resting in his presence, and about bringing those we love before him, asking his blessing upon their lives and loved ones. Not because it is our will, but because we have faith that if we want what is best for them, then our love cannot outdo his. Such prayer does not need to make demands, or exhortations, and does not particularly need to find the right words; it rests in God's being, and his being is endlessly one of love, mercy and compassion.
The Theotokos prays for each of us, as unceasingly as the angels and saints in heaven.
Our prayers join with hers, and with the whole company of heaven.
All such prayer is intercessory, because God's eyes are always turned towards the world and its needs. When we seek his will, then our prayers join with his will for the world, and pray for it.
But essentially, prayer is not about doing, but about being. The first step is very simple, and takes years to learn. It is contained in these sublime words; “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Any one of us could meditate upon these words for twenty years or more, and still not understand what they mean. In essence, they call upon us to stop striving for what we think is needed, and to trust. This is the first step in faith for any of us. The temptation is to rush into our day, and throw a few words towards God as we do, thinking that we will find time later to pray properly. This is not what God asks of us. He asks us to stop, and to trust, and to know him, before anything else. This stopping will calm our fears, and help us to achieve everything else that is necessary in our lives. It will also help us to sort that which must be done from that which we would like to do, but actually can’t manage today.
If we follow Our Lord's example we will turn our eyes to God from the moment we wake, and continue all day in the knowledge that he is beside us, and guiding us. There is never a moment when we are not in a state of prayer, and never a moment when his will is not ours as well. Not the other way round.
Far too many Christian prayers are little more than attempted magic. They 'claim the promises', and attempt to coerce God into doing what we suspect he might otherwise not have done, using the Lord's name as a magic spell. Such behaviour attempts to manipulate God, holding him to his given word, or else. This is an abuse of Scripture, and will always be ineffectual. God does not answer to Scripture, or to any other part of his creation. It is not God who must conform to our will, but we who must seek his, every moment of our lives, in continual prayer.
All of which is so hopelessly beyond any of us as to be impossible. Which is the paradox of our faith; it demands more of us than anyone can ever be. However, there is a path.
St Francis said, ‘First do that which is necessary. Then do that which is possible. Then you will have achieved the impossible.’
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‘...Through that sweet suffering that takes place in the mind for the sake of God at the life-resorting sorrow... the following are born in the mind in accordance with the various directions its meditating takes: grief for the sake of God, or joy at Him, and a heart that is diffused with the hope for which it is continually peering out. With their sharp warmth this suffering and joy burns and scorches the body, drying it up at the seething infusion of blood which provides heat and spreads through the veins... This hidden ministry causes to burst forth all the time a wondrous sort of transformation which either gives joy to both soul and body, or anguishes it with a sharp suffering. ...
'At whatever time God should open up your thinking from within, give yourself over to unremitting bows and prostrations... Then light will dawn within you, and your righteousness will quickly shine forth, and you will be like a paradise of burgeoning flowers and an unfailing fountain of waters’.
St Isaac of Syria
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