PRAYER AND RELEASE Brothers+ Thinking of Lectio Divina and prayer, one’s thoughts tend to run in another direction than toward Harry Emerson Fosdick. Fosdick was invited by an interdenominational committee of scholars to write an introduction to “The Book of Prayers”, a collection of prayers published in 1954. At the outset of his attempt to “point out some of the characteristic qualities of genuine communion with God” Fosdick wrote the following three paragraphs. ---------------------------------------- Fosdick wrote: For one thing, a shift of attitude from the aggressiveness of daily life to spiritual quietness, openness, hospitality is almost always present. There are two aspects to every strong life – rootage and fruitage, receptivity and activity, relaxation and tension, resting back and working hard. A man who cannot do the former can never do the latter well, never! He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward. The offices of psychiatrists are littered with folk who have mastered the techniques of activity and aggressiveness and now are going all to pieces because they have failed to master that other technique: they have nothing to rest back on. Listen to this prayer from the great tradition of the Church: “Let my soul take refuge from the crowding turmoil of worldly thoughts beneath the shadow of thy wings; let my heart, this sea of restless waves, find peace in thee, O God.” Whose prayer was that? Saint Augustine’s. A weak man? One of history’s momentous characters, from his early struggles with himself until at last, after an immeasurably important contribution to the world, as Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, he fell on sleep while the invading barbarians were at the city’s gates and the Roman empire was tumbling down about his ears. There is no understanding such a life without such prayer. He had something to rest back upon. Harry Emerson Fosdick May you find rest from your endeavors and peace as you celebrate Christ Mass. Charles+