Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic Perspective (4)

The primacy of prayer

Prayer has primacy in the life of Christian discipleship first of all in the sense of priority: it comes first and constitutes the foundation on which all other elements of Christian life are built. 

It has primacy also in the sense of being, ultimately, the most important activity in Christian life. Of course Christians must give concrete expression to their love of neighbour and their commitment to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. But we also have to take to heart Jesus’ important teaching during his visit to his friends Martha and Mary (Lk 10:38-42).

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Johannes Vermeer

While Martha made agitated efforts to serve Jesus, Mary sat quietly and conversed with him and listened to him.

Christian tradition has always interpreted Jesus’ remarks on this occasion as affirming the greater necessity of contemplation over activity. Attentiveness to God, adoration of God and listening to God have to come first, before acts of practical love and service of God and neighbour. Jesus taught Martha this lesson by reprimanding her gently, suggesting that in her state of fuss and distraction she was neglecting ‘the one needful thing’. Mary, by contrast, had chosen ‘the good portion’.

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (3)

by Fr Ian

In Parts 1 and 2 I tried to give a basic definition of Christian prayer and I claimed that prayer is a necessary activity, and the primary activity, for Christian believers. In the next two posts I'll say more about these two aspects of prayer. 

'Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, 

left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed' (Mark 1:35).

The necessity of prayer

As human beings we need prayer because we need God.

We don’t have to be religious-minded to conclude that human beings are driven by a kind of ‘hunger of the heart’, made up of various needs or longings that overlap and connect with each other. We have a longing for happiness and fulfilment in our lives. We seek purpose and meaning in our activities and our relationships, and we have a need for love - a need to give love to others and to receive love from them.

Is it time to re-think what we mean by prayer?

By Revd Roland

Before Fr Ian continues his series on prayer Revd Roland questions the relevance of such a traditional understanding.

Does the conventional view of God treat us all like children?

Ian's articles on prayer are interesting, profound and very conventional, but I think it is Ray's simple comment that really challenges our understanding of prayer. I too would challenge those who speak in the language of :

"Oh, when I have a problem, a question to solve in my life, I ask God and he answers me" (and presumably always gives the right answer).

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (2)

by Fr Ian

(Part 1 of this reflection is here)

Our essential poverty

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430)

I ended the first part of this reflection on Christian prayer with Saint Augustine’s remark that before God we are all beggars. And certainly for many of us it’s some experience of overwhelming need or suffering, beyond our control, that first drives home to us the essential poverty of our human condition (Mt 5:3; Lk 6:20) and provides the impetus that moves us to prayer.

According to the moral theologian Fritz Tillman, if an individual doesn’t pray when in need, whether it be either spiritual or material, ‘he is without the most efficacious source of interior strength, and it is thus his own fault if he cannot muster the energy to overcome the trial’ [2]

Turning to God and asking him for help, with trust in his goodness and power, honours God and brings us closer to him precisely in the Father-child relationship that he invites us into.

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (1)

by Fr Ian  

Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7.)

A Carthusian monk praying in his cell

In a series of six or so posts I’d like to try to broadly define the nature of Christian prayer, to spell out some of the different types and grades of prayer, and to explain some of the attitudes we need to cultivate in order to pray, and to pray well. 

In addition to that, I’ll try to present some reassuring facts about prayer, to help counter the discouragement we can easily feel towards an activity that most Christians have always found difficult - difficult to grasp and difficult to practise. 

Then, to end with, I’ll outline two specific ways of prayer: meditation using Scripture, or perhaps some other appropriate spiritual writing, and a simple form of contemplative prayer advocated by the Mill Hill Missionary Father James Borst.

~~~

Sowing seeds, the Kingdom of Heaven

Revd Roland Barnes, pastoral leader of the C-inW Bro Moelwyn Ministry Area, reflects on the relationship between the Kingdom of Heaven and the world we live in.  

Jesus proclaims God's Kingdom to the crowds

Great to read people’s various comments in response to Ian’s article and subsequent writings. Whether we agree with each other or not, it is so important to “talk.” Sharing thoughts and opinions and having them challenged is such a healthy thing to do. So thanks to everyone who has added their “penny’s worth.”

Parables of the Kingdom

I don’t know about you, but I have read and re-read Jesus’ numerous parables about “The Kingdom of God” (eg Mark 4. 21 – 34) and am still none the wiser.

“This is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like,” Jesus declares, “A seed planted, which grows and then is harvested.”

Ah!, what has that got to do with the Kingdom of Heaven, what does it tell us about the K of H?

The Hazards of Modernisation

In our first post Fr Ian Dalgleish, parish priest of St Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Blaenau Ffestiniog, reflects on some potentially negative aspects of adapting Christian faith to the values of modern society (approx. 2,500 words).

(click on the photograph for a modern celebration of Pentecost 

from the Archdiocese of Chicago)

In the Catholic Church, at the time of the Second Vatican Council, there was an Italian word which came to sum up the Council’s purpose and goal, and that was the word aggiornamento. It meant ‘up-dating’ or ‘modernisation’. It also had the connotation of renewal and re-energising: the renewal of Catholic spiritual life and the re-energising of the Church's mission.

It’s difficult to say very much briefly without oversimplifying things but I don’t think it’s misrepresenting the facts of Catholic Church history to say that by the 1950s there was a conviction among many Catholics - certainly among many of the Church’s bishops and theologians - that the Catholic faith had become in a sense fossilised, out-of-touch with modern society, perhaps even with most Catholics’ experience of everyday life.