In my posting yesterday, I quoted Archbishop Fenelon on "prayer,"  having used his words at St. John's on Rogation Sunday.  Here is another of my sermons on prayer.  I make no claim to originality:  only the synthesis is mine, though I perhaps too often make attribution.  As I said yesterday, strict "Quietism" is not for me; but emphatically, as an individualist seeking nuggets of spirituality in many places,  I find little fault in Fenelon's  "semi-Quietism."  Early on, as I recall, the group was asked to send in sample sermons.  In a spirit of at least semi-detachment, I say, "Please feel free to comment as you may see fit."  Regards.  X  (Please notice the St. Andrew's cross.  I can pay attention to ritualistic niceties too!)  KnoxDuncan@... 



"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love, one for another." John 13:35.

What distinguishes a Christian? The passage from John I just quoted provides an answer. St. Paul in the Epistle assigned for today in the BCP: by your behavior they shall know you. In the Gospel passage, John 16:16, our Lord speaks of the joy that no can take from us. A little booklet I picked up a long time ago spoke of the radiance of Christianity, and that term has meaning for me. (The booklet was written Lawrence Pearsall Jacks, an English priest who taught philosophy at Oxford in the early part of the 20th Century.) Jacks wrote: Those."who adopt the phrases distinctive of the Gospel but miss the radiant energy that transfigures their meaning.makes them ineffectual.so that in the long run their Christianity reduces itself to the pursuit of moral excellence under a system of inviolable law like the religion of the Book of Deuteronomy, that religion so challenged by St. Paul. The letter kills. The spirit gives life."

Recall the medieval argument: how many angels can stand on the point of a pin? Today, we hear that that there is a universe of electrons within that same pinpoint; and so the question may not be so silly after all. The change in point of view, though, is not important. Pins remain the same, whether angels or electrons dance on the point. Likewise what is essential about Christ is not a doctrine that seeks to explain him, but the radiance of his life that for these past 2000 years has so drawn mankind. "The spirit that we call Christ and the spirit behind history are one and the same thing," a quotation that has become of one my favorites.

How do we capture the radiance of Christ so that it reflects in our lives. Prayer is my suggestion. (Sunday after next, the fifth Sunday after Easter is Rogation Sunday, Prayer Sunday, and I want to do some sermons especially emphasizing prayer.) As Sabatier put it, "The history of prayer is the history of religion." At one end of the scaleso goes the verse-- "In even savage bosoms, There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not; And their feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's right hand in that darkness And are lifted up and strengthened." At the other end of the scale, the poet Coleridge says, "The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable." The human soul never outgrows prayer. Primitive man prays crudely, ignorantly, bitterly; at their best, men pray intelligently, spiritually, thankfully."

We think of prayer as a distinctly religious act, but "it ain't necessarily so," in the words of "Porgy and Bess." "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast." Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote "Every wish, with God, is a prayer." When the prodigal son said, "Father, give me the portion of thy substance that falleth to me," he was in a real sense praying. He expressed his innermost ambition. We all pray all the time. Our bodies craves food, our minds crave knowledge, our affection craves friendship, our spirits crave hope. Everything we do satisfies inward prayers. Our prayers reflect our best and worst selves. We see Gehazi, with covetous eyes following Naaman to filch his wealth; David, with licentious heart putting Uriah at the front of the battleline. No one ever found heaven without prayer; and no one ever found hell, here or elsewhere, without prayer. So each person prays, and the prayers inevitably reveal the inner person. 

You've heard me say often enough: "Prayer is always answered, always." There is a psychological rule, if you will: "Desire tends to attain its object." Why is this? A craving organizes all the faculties of our lives and sets mind and hands to do its bidding. Prayer habitually precedes thought and work. We think and labor because in our innermost heart we have first prayed, because some desire calls our minds, "Come, bring me this!" Robert Burns wrote: "E'en then a wish (I mind its pow'r), A wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast, That I for poor auld Scotland's sake Some usefu' plan or book could make, Or sing a song at least." That Burns did right well!  Dominant desire gathers up scattered faculties, concenters the mind, nerves the will, and drives hard toward the issue. As John Burroughs said, "If you have a thing in mind, it is not long be fore you have it in hand."

If a person craves vice, he finds it on every side. To the prodigal son, the inheritance that was meant to be his blessing proved to be his curse. Not only the physical but also the spiritual world aligns themselves to our prayers. So many of the speeches addressed to God are ineffectual because they do not express the inward set of our lives. What we pray with our lips does not correspond with our craving. A lazy student can pray to be learned; an idler can pray to be rich; but such prayers achieve little. Our outward petition is denied, but our desire, our real prayer, is granted. Many complain of unanswered prayer, but the great disasters come from answered prayers. The Bible is full of such prayers. When the prodigal in the far country came to himself, friends gone, reputation gone, willpower almost gone, to find himself poor, hungry, feeding swine, he suffered from the consequence of an answered prayer: his dominant desire had been fulfilled. Lot wanted Sodom, and he got it. Judas desired the 30 pieces of silver, and obtained them. Psalm 106:15: "He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul." Prayer is serious business, able to tear loose the moorings of life. (St. Augustine)

A cursory reading of the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount may awaken surprise because prayer is not mentioned. From what I've said, how could that be? Our Lord sums up the blessings of the spiritual life and omits prayer?  Read more deeply. Prayer is there in one of the greatest descriptions to be found in the Bible. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." (Matthew 5:6) Hunger and thirst is prayer. A radiance enveloped our Lord, so intently did he pray in Gethsemane, confirming God's plan for his life, and the cup did not pass from him. "Verily, verily I say unto you, That ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.and your joy no man taketh from you." Our Lord reflected the radiance of God, and we too, as children of God, may become candles of the Lord.