Sole Food...Soul Food...

Step 4 in the Discipline of Prayer series. Not happy with tonight's, but then there's always next week. Its funny that I talk about retreats, because I am just back from the Diocesan Curates' Retreat and it felt more like just another duty expected of a low-life curate than a time of refreshement. But now that I look back, there were many moments of great inspiration, you know the way, when, in the cartoons, the light bulb goes 'bing!' Lough Derg, next, maybe...or Pluscarden Abbey...or, well, maybe the YF sponsored walk on Saturday will have to do for my pilgrimage. ;-)

‘Soul Food’

Now during those days, Jesus went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God…They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
Luke 6: 12-19

This tableau of Jesus, who spends his entire night in prayer, rather than asleep, and who then is thrust into these awesome tasks of his ministry, is one of quite a stark contrast.

Jesus moves from the very solitary figure of one praying on a mountain and becomes a very public figure. He sets himself the task of choosing twelve apostles from his followers and then allows himself to be what many of us would run away from, a servant at peoples’ beck and call: They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Is it any wonder that Jesus goes up a mountainside to pray: it is the only way he can ever be alone and to get space to breathe and to be spiritually recharged and to be in communion with God his Father, because he is so sought after as a spiritual leader and as a healing presence amongst the peoples of Judea and Jerusalem.

It is very easy to get so caught up in the affairs of the world, in our work and in our day to day lives, that we can often forget or let slip the need to feed our souls and to bathe ourselves in scripture and prayer and to allow ourselves to enter deeply into God’s presence. And even where that work is the work of God, whatever our vocation, whatever our task, we still can get thrown into a flurry of busy-ness and preoccupation to meet deadlines, to meet targets, that we become frazzled and tired. And if we are tired as people, then our relationship with God can often be drained and dry. We all need balance. If we engage in a fraught, busy or public life, then we need private rest and prayer and scriptural study. Last week, we looked briefly at the monastic discipline of praying several times a day, in order to connect and re-connect with God’s presence through the regularity and familiarity of the set forms of liturgy and how this discipline is necessary for us contemporary Christians to fashion our lives into the likeness of God.

Another, slightly more unusual way, in which the modern person can reconnect with God’s presence, involves the idea of making a retreat, or going on a pilgrimage of some sort. A retreat in the strict sense is what you make at intervals, of maybe 6 months or a year or maybe a little less, depending on your circumstances, to a place which is set aside for prayer, meditation and spiritual guidance, such as a monastery or retreat centre or house run for that purpose. You will often hear people talking of their ‘spiritual home’, where they will go occasionally to recharge the batteries.

A pilgrimage is something you might only make once or twice in your life, and it will often involve arduous physical exercise and sacrifice in order to encounter God at a deeper level. Pilgrimage will always involve outstandingly beautiful natural surroundings and often meeting people very different from oneself. Places of pilgrimage are often world-renowned, such as Taizé, Santiago de Compostella, Iona, the Holy Land, Walsingham and the like. And pilgrimage is not just confined to Christianity. Muslims are obliged to make a pilgrimage to Mecca for example at least once in their lives.

I remember when I was a divinity student at College in Dublin, seeing an advert on a bus. There was a very striking picture of the soul of a foot with clods of soil around it and behind it was very blue sky. The shot of the camera was from under the ground if you like and we were looking up as if the foot was about to step over us. The caption read very simply: Sole Food, with the obvious play on words. It was an advertisement for short 1 or 3 day retreats/pilgrimages to Lough Derg, and clearly aimed at the busy commuter on Dublin’s buses. It was a clever advert and one which seemed to bring into contemporary relevance, something which is certainly nothing trendy or new. We can see from our gospel passage this evening that the notion of withdrawal to pray and to contemplate and to meditate was central to the life and survival of our Lord. From this passage we can glean that Jesus even deprived himself of sleep in order to meditate upon God’s presence and goodness. We can assume that in his prayer, Jesus would have contemplated some of the Hebrew Scriptures in the hope of finding some resonance for his own situation.

The idea of sacred or meditative reading of the scriptures, known as Lectio Divina, is a very ancient monastic practice and discipline. In the early monasteries, only very few monks were able to read, and so lectio was the way in which the majority of them prayed. Nowadays, it is a discipline which is currently most commonly practised on pilgrimage or on retreat, but should not be limited to it. It can easily be attempted at home or somewhere were there is likelihood of some silence. It is a discipline which involves deeply concentrated mental prayer, that is to say, where we lift up our souls to God through the constant re-thinking and marinating of a short text of Holy Scripture in one’s mind. It is a discipline which needs to be learned, but the method is very simple: of reading, meditation and prayer. What we bring to lectio is our experience, ourselves, our souls and bodies as an offering to God. One of the great developers of the method of meditative reading was St Ignatius of Loyola and next week, we will examine in greater depth the process of such discipline.

But for this evening, let us return to that image of our Lord on a mountain praying all night, without sleep, before setting off to choose twelve apostles and to be thrown into the demanding work of healing, teaching and building up the Kingdom. With the daybreak, comes a sense of readiness, readiness to be in demand and to be pulled from all sorts of directions. Jesus knows the urgency of his vocation, but can only do it when he has gathered the strength. Where else do we see such a pattern? Tonight’s image from St Luke 6, prefigures the scene of prayer in Gethsemane, when our Lord spends time in gathering the courage, resolve and strength, to face the greatest task ahead.

If our Lord, needed to gather spiritual strength from making time to pray and no doubt allowing a degree of discipline to prevail, then how much more do we need to do the same and how much more of a charade does it make of our lives as His followers if we forget, omit or ignore the need to pray regularly to the One who himself intercedes to the Source of all life. Amen.

Church advertising?

I love ECUSA's (Episcopal/Anglican Church in the USA) way of doing things. They are very 'a la mode' as the French would say. Cool slick advertising. Excellent educational resources and very welcoming and inclusive ethos. Though even that is controversial. ECUSA and the rest of the Anglican Communion are in a wee bit of dispute about matters which seem silly to the outside world quite frankly.

Should the church be more 'in the market place'. Or should the church not just simply do what secular 'traders' do: advertise and compete for business?

But I do love their advertising...

'Teach us to pray...'

This is the third in the series of Lenten talks. It was interesting to write. I have an idea for next week's, but I am running out of steam for the final two. As for Holy Week...eeerrrmm..

The Discipline of Prayer (3)
Reading: Luke 11: 1-4

In the world in which we live with the busy-ness of our day to day routine and with the often unreal expectations which are placed upon us, it is sometimes difficult to find the words to say our prayers, since we can become jaded and mentally exhausted.

In tonight’s reading, Jesus inspires a desire to pray through his own example of praying, thereby prompting the disciple to inquire further into the mystery of this aspect of their master’s life. The words which Jesus uses are probably the most familiar set of words to every living creature. Even when someone suffers from severe memory loss or Alzheimer’s disease, the Lord’s Prayer can often still be remembered and recited. The set, defined pattern of words can actually, contrary to common criticisms, never become too familiar, because it always allows the love and grace of God to flow in.

Last week, we thought about the idea of prayer as the foundation of everything worthwhile that we do, because of the reality that we are never hidden from God’s presence nor can we have any secret thoughts or desires in relation to God. We considered that that was the key to a more open attitude in our prayer-life. Jesus offers this thread of thought when he teaches the inquisitive disciple who wishes to learn the tools of prayer.

If you ever want to learn the tools of disciplined prayer, spend some time in a monastic community!

Members of monastic communities will pray together frequently every day, beginning as soon as they wake from their sleep, often at 6am, or in very strict orders, they will get up from sleep in the middle of the night and pray before going back to sleep again. This might sound harsh to us, who look forward to nothing more than a lie in on a Saturday morning!

But for the monastic community, the office of matins at 6am is the invitation to God to enter their hearts afresh for that day and to accompany them on their daily rhythm of work, prayer and study. It is the alarm clock, if you like, for their spiritual lives to start clicking into action again and to start contemplating the mysteries of God from where they left off before sunset the day before. The office of Matins is like any office of prayer, simply readings from Holy Scripture, the recitation of psalms, responses and antiphons in a much regularised fashion. Their daily offices will each include a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Our own versions of the office in the Church of Ireland, such as Morning and Evening Prayer are closely derived from the monastic offices of Matins and Vespers. And of course, Compline which we pray tonight is hardly changed at all from when it was devised by the most ancient of monastic communities in the early centuries AD.

For those unfamiliar with set defined liturgy, such as we use tonight, it might seem perhaps rarefied, remote, strange or mysterious. Although generally speaking, genuine liturgy will have a great deal of appeal even to those unfamiliar with it.

But such questions remain as why do we repeat the same responses, the same canticles week by week? Well, the monastic requires us to listen to the words in order to contemplate the mysteries of God. And for this to happen, the pattern of prayer ought to be familiar. This is where the discipline comes into play: the discipline which has to be grafted into us, which has to be taught to those unfamiliar with it, which has to be grappled with.

Nothing in our lives ever comes easily or immediately, whether playing the piano, or driving a car or a baby learning to walk or an apprentice learning the skills of her trade. Everything demands patience, perseverance, and regular teaching and practice. And in a way it is no different for formal liturgical, prayer. And yet prayer following the example of Jesus should become as natural and as essential as breathing the air around us or eating our breakfast.

For the ancient monastic, prayer was spoken in terms of the remembrance of God, which actually continues whether in or out of formal liturgy, while eating, while engaged in manual work and labour and in the very important ministry of hospitality to the stranger, all of which continue to this present day. But this remembrance of God never came easily. It grew out of the root of regular, disciplined, daily prayer and even when one’s own spirit would be low or depressed, the presence of the prayer was there to be followed and to remind that God’s presence was forever near to sustain. Just last week in the newspaper I read an interview given by the Bishop of Portsmouth who has just returned to work after 6 months of having been treated for leukaemia. He was in hospital for 12 weeks. In the interview he says, very touchingly ‘Come hell or high water, I said morning and evening prayer every day. It was not what I felt like, and a lot of time it meant nothing, but the discipline was so important, and I depended on it. Sometimes I would have to stop if a doctor or nurse came in. It was one of the things that got me through, even on the days when I could barely see because of the chemotherapy.’ (Church Times, 10 March 2006)

That is the proof, I think, of how the practice of prayer spills over into ‘real’ life and how the determined routine can both fit and shape the patterns of our life, regardless of shifting mood, inclination or ailment.

As a duty, prayer is our offering back to God with thankful hearts for all the goodness he has bestowed on us. But beyond that duty, prayer blossoms into a relationship where the awareness of the presence of God saturates every aspect of our life.

Better late than never

Well, I suppose I could have directed the thirsty-for-the-Word congregation to my blogspot via my fraught mobile phone call to the churchwarden, for I had posted the second Lenten address even before I preached it. I arrived a little late due to travel hitches, to the 7.30 Compline. Thank God for collegiality. And for Fr John Gowen who began the liturgy.

At least I slid in at just the right point for the Bible Reading and address. So in actual fact they didnt really miss out on anything at all. But it did get me thinking that if I hadnt turned up at the right time, what would have happened? Would I have got an official warning? Would I have been sacked? Or would I have been forgiven? Mmmm.

As it was, I asked for forgiveness and they were gracious enough to bestow that upon me. One nice person came up and tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'You did so well. That was very professional.' Moments like that are worth freeze-framing. They don't happen very often.

'Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts'

This is the second of my Lenten addresses on the theme 'The Discipline of Prayer', to be delivered at St Mark's Dundela (DV!) on Wednesday 8 March 2006.


The Discipline of Prayer (2)

In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him…

(St Mark 1.35-36)

‘God is present everywhere – present to the good and to the evil as well, so that nothing anyone does escapes his notice; that is the firm conviction of our faith. Let us be very sure, however, without a moment’s doubt that his presence to us is never as strong as while we are celebrating the work of God in prayer.’

(from Chapter 19 of the Prologue to the Rule of St Benedict)

Everything that we do, everything that we think and everything that we desire is known to God, even before it is known to ourselves. Such things are also understood more deeply by God than by ourselves. We can hide nothing from God even if we fail to acknowledge something, whatever it is, to ourselves. And so given that very humbling and almost fear-inducing truth, we might ask ourselves, ‘What is the implication of this in our prayer life?’ and ‘Does this in any way change our method of praying?’

When we acknowledge that even the deepest darkest secrets are known very clearly by the Almighty, then we cannot avoid being humbled in our approach to prayer. This is I suspect one of the first stages of a disciplined approach to prayer. That we rid ourselves of any false expectations or fallacies such as that God will only hear and respond to things that we tell him and that the things that we do not mention go unnoticed. One of the most rudimentary things which our liturgy teaches us is to settle in the knowledge that our hearts become very open and vulnerable in prayer. We ourselves as entire human persons become vulnerable if we are genuinely open and honest in prayer to God: that cannot be avoided.

At the beginning of every service of the Holy Communion in our church we pray the Collect for Purity. It is a very ancient prayer of course, pre-Reformation in origin and much beloved of Thomas Cranmer in his revision of the liturgy. But it is a prayer which expresses our ‘attitude’ in devotion; it is the prayer which we should pray at the outset of any formal, liturgical encounter with God, no matter how or when. It is a prayer that we should not only say blindly, but take some silent time to consider and ponder:
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

To recite this prayer is, you might say, comparable to consuming a large glass of ice cold mineral water first thing in the morning, or to taking a walk before breakfast in a forest on a cold frosty winter morning with sun splitting the trees. The Collect for Purity is the equivalent of pouring a refreshing, cleansing, purifying balm over your entire being: hence the name, the Collect for Purity. It is a prayer so simply written, yet so vastly full of profound truths about God, about ourselves and about the nature of our encounter with God.

In this prayer we ask for the Holy Spirit to renew our jaded spirits for the task which is ahead of us, that of worshipping the Almighty in the Sacrament, we ask for the breath of the Holy Spirit to blow away the cobwebs of deceit and distraction and temptation, and to draw us into a place of calmness and peace where we can leave behind our stresses and daily occupations and concentrate afresh on the living God. We approach God’s presence in the knowledge that when we confess our sins, the slate will be wiped clean.

The Collect for Purity also expects of us what we might think is the impossible; that our love for God may be perfect: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you… But it is not always helpful to think of something as ‘impossible’: God desires us to be as perfect as we can become in our prayer, he desires that our worship might be honest and open; but never expects the impossible. It is this notion of vulnerability once again: that only when we open ourselves honestly, can the grace of God to flow into us. Then, we might have a chance to be as perfect as we can be, in God’s presence.
At the beginning of each day, let us attempt to do as Jesus did in our reading tonight from St Mark’s Gospel: go to a quiet place and pray before everyone starts hunting for us. And in order to focus our minds, let us make it our duty to slowly read the Collect for Purity to wash away our fears and misconceptions; to make ourselves aware once again that God can peer into every crevice of our innermost being.

Let us allow ourselves to become vulnerable so that God’s purity might flow into us and our love for him be perfect.

Getting up and going to work...a priestly paradox (1)

Under the title of my blogspace I have written a phrase I often quote: 'not a job, a lifestyle'. It was a phrase a very wonderful priest called Grace Clunie taught me when I was her student during my ministerial training. It is at once a comforting and yet fear-inciting phrase. Most people would love to be able to wake up at 8am and have breakfast, say their prayers and get to their desk by 8.30 or 8.45am and not even have to leave their house. Is it a kind of false attractiveness? Sometimes I think I would much prefer to have to get up at 7am and have breakfast and journey into work for 8.56am. At least then I wouldn't have distractions like the kettle, the tv, the bookshelves or the guilt factor that I am becoming idle (something which St Benedict warned against in his monastic rule). But yet, the extra half an hour in bed is a God-send, especially on a Monday morning. Yet how many other jobs would allow their bosses to phone them at home after 9.30pm or on a Saturday at 9am or how many people would work on a Sunday from 8am to 10pm. And have 1 day off a week, which is often spent at home, where you often spend your work time. And with the prickly thought in the back of your head that someone, anyone could phone you at any time, because their loved one has just died.

We are told in post ordination training that for survival its all about boundaries, all about the sense of yourself, all about not answering your phone during meal times (which I am slowly learning). Its all about 'developing a thick skin', and not worrying about the fact that Marjorie or Hattie (false names) say, 'honestly that curate's never in'.

The answer to it all is: its not a job, its a lifestyle. Maybe I will 'work' 15 hours one day, maybe I will 'work' 5 hours another day, but as another wise person once said to me, 'you are paid to pray, not paid to make money or to meet targets'. Amen to that.

'...the soul in paraphrase, the heart in pilgrimage...'

It is my turn this Lent to preach at the Wednesday Lenten services. Not an easy feat, I must say, but a useful one. I have chosen for my theme, 'The Discipline of Prayer'. This is the first of the addresses, given on Ash Wednesday.

The first part of the address is sort of a bit vague- it really introduces Lent, and then the prayer aspect of Lent becomes more apparent in the latter half of the address!


The Discipline of Prayer (1)

Lent is, in some ways, like a mirror, because we look at our own reflection. We gaze at ourselves long and hard, though in doing so we eventually stop seeing our own self and, we hope, begin to see glimpses of God, through us, behind us, above us, over our shoulder, or all around us.

It is not always easy looking in the mirror, because we don’t always see what we would like to see. We sometimes see things that we wish we could change. That’s a fairly normal feeling. Of course like anything, we can be too hard on ourselves and allow the mirror to exaggerate what is really there and our own eyes become clouded to the truth. And Lent might be a little bit like all of this. We look at our spiritual selves, we examine our way of life, even as basic as the routines that we have developed and we ask ourselves, is this healthy for us, is this the best model for ourselves in order that God can penetrate our hearts, souls, minds and lives and draw us closer to Godself.

We look in the mirror and examine ourselves as we are. We accept and affirm what is healthy, what brings us life and happiness and hope and what leads us to God, and we decide to change those things which are unhealthy, those things which push God and ourselves apart and which bring us depression and despair. We hope by doing this that we can in some ways develop a healthier life, particularly spiritually and allow God’s power to steer us through the curves and bumps of the rest of the year. Some people might crudely call Lent an MOT or a spiritual spring-clean. Whatever image we use, it is good to see Lent as a positive rather than a negative gift of the Church to us. We are given the space in church to take time to examine ourselves…to look into the mirror and gradually see glimpses of God through our own reflection.

None of this can of course ever be done completely by our own powers, though of course it does demand a certain amount of effort and discipline on our part. But the church is there to help in this instance and is here to help us foster healthiness in our spiritual lives. And of course, most importantly, the grace of God will always enlighten our own efforts.

One of the traditional manners of the Lenten discipline is to concentrate more intensely upon prayer. Many churches will increase the services of worship offered or open their buildings more often so that people can come and seek the solace of a sacred space in which to engage with prayer on a much more rigorous level. Places of worship will offer special Lenten services or Lenten study groups, again to cultivate the idea of a Lenten pattern.

For the next 5 or 6 Wednesdays in Lent, we shall be exploring the idea of prayer as a discipline. Not just a discipline for Lent, but for the entire period of our lives as followers of Christ. The word discipline can sometimes evoke negative vibes, especially if we think of discipline in relation to authority, or over-powering control of one person over another or related to punishment. But this is not the discipline we wish to focus on. The discipline we talk of means the ordered, structured, regular pattern of prayer which the Anglican liturgy offers us and encourages us to maintain day by day both individually and communally. During the next weeks we shall be searching the deeper meanings of some of the very familiar prayers known to the Anglican, for example the Collect for Purity and others. These sorts of prayers have followed many a wandering soul and brought them back to God and through their familiarity, have encouraged and developed a renewed discipline of prayer and devotion.

There is, I suppose a certain degree of recognition in the modern world that prayer is not an easy thing to regularise, especially if one exists outside of a monastic community. And that is very true. Perhaps some will feel that prayer is a chore, or a duty to be done, something expected of a Christian, rather than something which we are drawn to or that we yearn for. Or maybe there is a little bit of both in each of us. Yes, prayer is a duty, it is something which we are required to do and in this sense it is a discipline. But it is a discipline which should never cause resentment, nor add to our busy-ness, nor should it ever be an added pressure, or simply another slot in the diary.

Prayer, wrote George Herbert, is the soul in paraphrase, the heart in pilgrimage. It is the lifting up of the heart and mind towards God. It is listening with the ear of the heart. In our lives we need the love of God constantly, because without it we sink into spiritual wilderness and death; prayer is the only way to open our hearts to that love. Amen.