The Case of the Missing Prayer

The Case of the Missing Prayer

There are many pathways to God. As in Thomas Merton’s spiritual classic; the “Seven Storey Mountain”, we wander the vast circumference of our life’s Pilgrimage, until, at last, we come to the Summit. But, is there something missing in our modern spirituality? I love a good mystery, so let me set the stage for the Case of the Missing Prayer!

Toronto was growing like topsy in the 1950’s. When my mom remarried, off we went to Canada. My stepfather had just become the Chief Engineer of the Weston Biscuit Company, Canada’s version of Nabisco. 

The Diocese of Toronto placed a small portable on a plot of ground in our neighborhood, and assigned a young priest to the cure. He canvased the development in which we lived. He dropped by our house and invited us to church. I began to  attend services. 

In the fall of 1960, it came time for me to attend Confirmation classes. Fr Hall was fresh out of seminary, and Honest to God his classes seemed to me like post graduate study. They were rigorous and demanding, with memory work, written essays, and exams.

He used the Socratic method in teaching. One day he asked us what we knew of the seven principal kinds of Christian Prayer. He waited for us to respond. Class?

We ventured to answer; 

Praise

Intercession

Thanksgiving

Penitence (asking for forgiveness)

Those were the obvious ones. What’s missing? I remember squirming, telling myself I should know this stuff, I prayed often. But then I asked myself, was my prayer complete?

“Go on”; he said.

Alas we were stuck.

With a twinkling eye he tapped his foot waiting.

Finally he said; “What about Adoration?”

We replied, “what’s the difference between that and Praise?”

“Aha!” Said he, “what does the Catechism say?”

We were supposed to read the Catechism the night before, but  perhaps we were not so diligent about doing so.

“Adoration” he said, reading from the Prayer Book, “is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God asking nothing more but to enjoy God’s presence.”

Interesting! That made perfect sense to me. Just being in church in the presence of the holy, listening to the Silence and the beauty of an organ prelude, or as a child lying down on my back and watching the passing clouds with a friend assigning faces to the wind swept shapes, “perhaps that’s Lincoln”. Yes, many’s the time I asked nothing more but to be in the presence of God. 

Question; “What the difference between that and Praise?”

Fr Hall referenced the Catechism again; “we Praise God not to ask for anything but because God’s Being draws Praise from us.”

That made sense too. Praise seems more active than Adoration. We often use the word “Praise” in Church as an act of devotion, most notably at the presentation of the Gifts of the People of God at the Offertory. 

“Go on, Fr Hall, what else did we miss?” 

We provided a blank silence.

“Petition,” he said. “You got Intercession, that’s a prayer for someone else. Petition is a prayer to God for yourself.”

That made sense too!

“So, to review,” the kindly priest said, “we have six kinds of prayer so far; Adoration, Praise, Thanksgiving, Petition, Intercession, and Penitence”

“What’s the missing Prayer?” 

For the life of me, I could not think of it. Neither could my classmates. 

“Think!” Fr Hall pressed firmly upon our hearts and minds. 

Nothing! We were baffled. 

Finally I said with a chuckle; “What pray tell, is the missing prayer?” 

“Not so fast,” the young priest said. “Think of Jesus. What was his prayer to God?”

It took a while, but finally he got it out of us. 

The hint had to do with the prayer on the night before he died for us.

Remember, at Gethsemani Jesus prayed; “Let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” ~Matthew 26:39.   

The mysterious word Oblation entered my vocabulary that day. The Catechism teaches; “Oblation is an offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in union with Christ, for the purposes of God.” 

Interesting. 

In other words, this is a prayer that reverses the order of subject and predicate. In the intimacy of the I-Thou relationship between us, the Prayer of Oblation turns now to to God who looks to us for the answer.

Now we say not what we want of God, but wonder what God wants of us? This is a prayer critical to the development of a mature spiritually.

Or to put that in a way that I finally came to understand, in my own words; “Jesus, you can count on me to do whatever it takes, whatever it is you need me to do for you and for your people.” 

Comes now the Gospel reply;

“Feed my sheep.

Serve my poor.

Visit the sick and those in prison.

Give the outcast a safe place to call home.

Be my Body in and for the sake of the world.

Go, love the world as much as I do and change it and make it look like me.

Do not be afraid, little flock.

I give my life for you. Go, give your lives for others.”

Aha! The Case of the Missing Prayer! 

Answer: Oblation!

It is akin to the stirring declaration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his inaugural address; “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” 

The Prayer of Oblation declares likewise; “Ask not what God can do for you, ask what you can do for God.”

The tendency of a Consumer Society is to set before God the things we need and want, forgetting what God requires of us; namely, “to do justice,  to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God”. ~Micah 6:8

Hence the “Missing Prayer”: Oblation. 

Today’s lessons include Solomon’s prayer of Petition to God for the Gift of Wisdom. The Psalmist is full of Thanksgiving as the Psalmist often is. Paul reminds us to Praise God in melody and song. And in the continuing theme of these past few weeks, Jesus is Bread of Heaven, making an offering of himself in union with God for the purposes of God. 

I needn’t remind you of what you do here at Trinity for ACAT, Dinah’s House, The Lower Merrimack Collaborative, the Worship of God and the Service of God’s people. You are an Oblation indeed to God and God’s people. 

And so, class, as Fr Hall would say;  let’s review the Seven Principal Kinds of Prayer 

Adoration

Praise

Thanksgiving

Petition

Intercession

Penitence

And the missing prayer missing no more;

Oblation. 

Mystery solved!

Here we are. Trinity Church in a period of Transition. Praying God send us someone who will join us in this Pilgrimage and offer himself/herself along with each and every one of you as an Oblation, an offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in union with Christ, for the purposes of God.

In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided, and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul

A Prayer for James

I Gave My Heart

The Sacred Journey brought us together for Jimmy's funeral. I was more than a priest yesterday. I gave my heart to my family. I shared my faith. As we stood at the graveside I took a handful of sandy soil and made the sign of the cross and read the appointed words and paused as the Spirit moved in our hearts and the wind blew through the trees.

I have always loved these stirring words of faith from the Book of Job.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;
and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God;
whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold,
and not as a stranger.
For none of us liveth to himself,
and no man dieth to himself.
For if we live, we live unto the Lord.
and if we die, we die unto the Lord.
Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;
even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.

And then there were the words from Isaiah; a vision of the Messianic Banquet. Our family loves a good Thanksgiving feed. What family doesn't? Imagine God's Banquet Table.

Isaiah 25:6-9

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples 

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, 

of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. 

And he will destroy on this mountain 

the shroud that is cast over all peoples, 

the sheet that is spread over all nations; 

he will swallow up death forever. 

Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, 

and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, 

for the LORD has spoken. 

It will be said on that day, 

Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. 

This is the LORD for whom we have waited; 

let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

Then I shared what I had crafted by way of a Prayer for James.

A Prayer for Jimmie

Gathered here today we bring before You all the things we do not and cannot understand,

And we remember that moment of Grace when in the last moments of Your life, You stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross so that everyone might come within the reach of Your saving embrace,

And even in those last moments of despair and abandonment you were able to say;

“Forgive them Father, they just don’t know what they are doing!”

Now we commend Jimmie to Your never failing love
Knowing that You wipe away the sin and sorrow of his heart and ours.

Knowing that You are wiping away the tears from his eyes and ours,

Knowing that You are doing better things for him and us than we can desire or even pray for.

This is the reason for our faith and our enduring love.

And we press on the best way we know how, doing the work that God has given us to do; to care for and love one another

In the Name of Jesus Christ we pray.

Amen.

I asked for God's blessing on us all.

We gathered then at the Town Hall.

There were lots of people to greet. 

And then home again.

Such is the Sacred Journey the Holy Pilgrimage we are on.

Toward you.

Bless us we pray in every step we take.

Amen.

Fr Paul

A Pilgrimage to France

St Gabriel's Youth Journey to France

"Encountering God"

Every day we gathered for Morning Prayer and Compline, led primarily by our Pilgrims.

On our way to the Cathedral at Rouen, I reminded our pilgrims that over the great west doors at the cathedrals, we will see sculptures of the Last Judgment. The passage from scripture on which this art is based is from Matthew 25:31ff. "Insofar as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it to me". The passage is about God's judgment of the nations of the earth. Read the passage yourself. The poor, the hungry, the homeless, the suffering the outcast are among those Jesus considers the "least of these". Everyone who enters the greatest cathedrals of France sees the same scene. Those who presented this scene to the faithful understood how important the final judgment is to our ultimate understanding of scripture is about. Kings and Queens must enter the Cathedrals by these same doors. This is a reminder of how the rich and powerful are to treat those who are not so blessed.

It came to me that the encounter with God by Moses was a good way to organize our thoughts for this pilgrimage.

We began our first full day in France with the story of Moses at the burning bush. The scripture says that God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush to say; "Take off your shoes, for the land on which you stand is holy ground". I explained to our Pilgrims that it is obvious that the much of the ground on which we stood throughout this pilgrimage was holy. I suggested to our pilgrims that it is always the case that the ground on which they stand is holy, because life itself is holy.

Next we read that God told Moses that he had seen the suffering of God's people. God told Moses to go to Pharaoh and say; "Let my people go." The question for our lives then is that we too see the suffering of God's people. How shall we go to our "Pharaoh" to say; "Let my people go". How shall we confront the reality of injustice and oppression in our time.

When we came to the following day of our pilgrimage, we read in the same chapter (Exodus 3) that God revealed his Name to Moses: "I AM". It appears that God's Name has to do with the very nature of God's Being. So too, as we awaken to our "being" we learn of who we are and who God is for us. This is the very essence of our pilgrimage. Several of our pilgrims walked the labyrinth at Chartres and discovered God's heart beating within them. 

On our way to worship at the American Cathedral in Paris, we moved on to a few verses from the Sermon on the Mount. There comes a time in a Pilgrim's journey, when we are no longer searching so much as we now become the source of God's own Light. Thus we become the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world".

On preparing for our return home I read the concluding words of the Sermon on the Mount. "Those who listen to these words of mine and acts on them will be like the one who builds his home on rock. When the storms come, the rain, the floods, the winds, the house did not fall, because it was built on rock. But the foolish one who does not do so will be like the foolish one who builds his home on sand, and when the storms arise, the house will fall, and great will be the fall of that house."

Thus the St Gabriel's Pilgrimage 2013 was about encountering God in the least of these, at God's burning bush. We are standing on holy ground, and God's ask us to notice the suffering of God's people. God's Name is holy and so is ours so we become the salt of the earth and the light of the world. As you listen to God and do as God asks you will build your lives on solid ground; on rock.

I will stand by those words with joy in my heart of these young people and pray that they will long remember this journey to the heart of God.

Fr Paul