Part Five:
Prayer: We Meet God Daily
“The community should have specified periods for prayerful
reading...”
-
RB 48:1
We should realize that it is not in much talking [in prayer]
that we shall be heard, but in purity of heart and tearful
compunction.”
- RB 20: 4
“Let us consider, then, how we ought to sing the Psalms
in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices.”
- RB 19:7
Prayer is at the heart of the Benedictine way of life. In prayer we praise God.
We forgive and ask forgiveness. Through
prayer we enter more deeply into relationship with the God we love.
In daily prayer we explore the mystery of our faith and are united with
all Christians everywhere. In
prayer we are comforted, challenged, sustained and transformed.
Prayer is the source of our life.
Prayer in the Benedictine way of life serves two purposes. Prayer is the practice and discipline on our journey that
leads us to a closer relationship with God.
Prayer is also the destination of our journey because in prayer we join
our hearts with God’s.
Fortunately Benedict knew
that because of our human nature we often don’t even do the things we want to
do. We may sincerely want to pray
but often neglect to do so. We
desire a closer relationship with God but aren’t sure how to go about it.
Benedict recognized this reality of the human heart so he structured his
monastic way of life around prayer practices that would give people the means
they needed to pray and grow in prayer.
Everyday the monastics pray the Opus Dei (Work of God) or Divine Office.
The Office consists of the recitation of Psalms, other Scripture
readings, prayers and hymns. The daily schedule of the monastery also allows at least two
hours in the prime of the day for lectio divina or prayerful reading.
In this way a monastics life was a continual cycle of prayer.
The monastic is constantly called back into the presence of God either
through both community and private prayer.
In community life times for prayer were central, the times for work,
meals, bedtime, and all other aspects of life revolved around the prayer
schedule.
Questions for Reflection:
- Sometimes even in the
busiest schedule it’s possible to have brief interludes of prayer.
Some of the following techniques may be helpful to you:
- Set up a small holy
place in your home or office, perhaps with a favorite picture or icon, a candle
or framed quotation. Visit this
place during the day even just for a couple of minutes to become aware of
God’s presence.
- Occasionally just stop
and thank God for what is happening in your life at this time.
- Say a quick intercessory
prayer for someone in need.
- Practice a short prayer
such as the Jesus Prayer or Hail Mary along with breath awareness.
Inhale in saying one phrase, exhale with the next phrase.
- Memorize a verse from
Scripture that you can come keep coming back to during the day.
Lectio Divina: Praying the Word
Benedictine prayer and spirituality is deeply grounded in Holy Scripture.
Verses from the Bible and allusions to Scripture permeate the Rule.
The communal prayer of Benedictine communities, the Divine Office,
consists primarily of Scripture readings. The
primary private prayer of monastics is lectio
divina or prayerful reading of Scripture.
For monastics the Word of God is not simply to be studied or heard only
on Sundays. It is part of the air
they breathe. The Benedictine way
of life is a life permeated with prayer and the presence of God in Scripture.
In addition to praying daily as a community, Benedict prescribes a
substantial period of time each day to private prayer, lectio divina.
Through lectio the monastic was given a chance to daily encounter the
revealed Word of God in Scripture. Through
the Word God comes to speak to the deepest places in our hearts.
In this deep listening we are challenged, changed and comforted by our
God. This encounter with Scripture
will not leave us unchanged, in God’s revealed word we receive strength and
guidance for our continuing journey.
The actual process of lectio is as simple as it can be transforming.
Traditionally lectio is taught as four steps.
The first is lectio or reading.
Take a short passage of Scripture and read it over slowly and carefully.
What word or phrase seems to catch you or make you stop?
Take that word or phrase and repeat it slowly to yourself several times.
The next step is meditatio or
meditation. Ponder the word or
phrase that came to you. How is it
speaking to you? Where does it lead
you? What does it remind you of?
Spend some time listening to where it takes you.
Next, let your meditation become oratio
or prayer. Turn the insights of
your meditation into a prayer. It
may be a prayer of thanksgiving, a plea for help, a request for the strength to
change. This prayer is simply
offering to God whatever came from your insights in meditation.
Finally, from prayer move to contemplatio
or contemplation. This is a simple,
wordless resting in God’s presence. God
knows our needs, our wounds and gifts, words are no longer needed.
Simply spend some resting under God’s loving gaze.
When the time is right choose another passage and repeat the process.
The process, doing the steps perfectly and in the right order is not what
is most important. Lectio
divina is simply the opportunity to listen to God’s word for you in Scripture
in a way that works best for you. It
should be noted that some people add a step and engage in “snore-atio” while
trying to lectio. That is all right
too; sometimes our need for sleep is how God speaks to us.
Questions for Reflection:
- Try practicing lectio
with your favorite passage from Scripture or from the Rule of Benedict.
- How can the Word of God
be something living and active in your life?
Together Sing Praise:
In our culture prayer is usually private.
Except for Sunday worship most of us think of our prayer lives as very
personal and individual, between ourselves and God.
While our individual prayer lives are crucial to our progress on the
spiritual journey, it is often easy to fall into the trap of rugged
individualism, that somehow we are alone in our relationship with God.
The reality is that we are never alone in our journey of faith. We are surrounded, upheld, nurtured and challenged by the
whole Body of Christ and People of God.
When we pray together, we are reminded of our common faith in God, our
common reliance on God’s redeeming grace in our lives. Our common prayer reminds us that sometimes we carry each
other on this journey and sometimes we are carried.
When our faith is weak and wavering, others hold us up; when we are
strong we in turn help our brothers and sisters.
When we pray together we pray not only for our immediate community and
concerns, but we pray for all those who do not pray.
We hold those who have no faith in our prayers.
Through our common prayer we remember and incorporate the deepest,
unvoiced concerns of the people in our world who never pray.
The heart of Benedictine
communal prayer is the Psalms. While
the Psalms are not often a large part of the spiritual lives of modern people,
it is easy to see why they are so suited to common prayer.
There is probably no part of human experience that is not reflected in
the Psalms, the depths of despair, the heights of praise, blazing anger and
sublime love radiate from the Psalms. As
the community gathers to sing these ancient prayers, each person realizes that
there is nothing new or unique in his or her experience and nothing that is
untouched by God, nothing that cannot be transformed by God.
In the Psalms we are reminded of God’s faithfulness to us, a
faithfulness that endures despite our wandering, failings, idolatry and
ungratefulness. The Psalms express
the deepest longing of our hearts for God and assure us that God will satisfy
that longing. Our darkness and
despair are part of the world of the Psalms.
When we doubt God’s presence or even our desire for life, we have the
company of the Psalmist who expresses the same feelings.
In praying the Psalms together, we stand in the tradition of uncounted
people over the centuries who stood to proclaim that God indeed reigns.
We stand as a community of faith and make real the continuing presence of
God in the world. We believe and proclaim that God is indeed our light and our
salvation, we have nothing to fear. (Ps. 27:1)
Questions for Reflection:
-
What is your experience or
practice of community prayer? What
does it mean to you to be part of a praying community?
-
What witness do we give to
the world when we pray as a community?
- What is your experience of
praying the Psalms? You may want to
try doing “lectio” with them on a regular basis.
|
Benedictine
Sisters, Monastery of St. Gertrude, Cottonwood, Idaho
