Prayer – not an easy thing

Prayer is difficult; let’s face it. To start is easy; to persevere is hard. I always liken it to what happens after the London Marathon. Immediately after the race you see quite a few more runners out on the streets than usual, all starting to train for the following year. But when it is cold, when the rain and wind sets in, when it is grey and dull and all you want to do is pull the blankets over your head and stay snug in your bed, then the runners become fewer.

Someone has said that prayer is particularly difficult for modern, western people because we all come from a culture which says we have to become competent at anything we take on. We talk about “conquering skills,” meaning to be able to do something with ease and ability. But prayer isn’t like that. In fact prayer is almost the opposite of that. However long we may have been praying we always feel like beginners; and alongside the deep and meaningful experiences we might have every now and then, there are days when we are bored or cross or so distracted that at the end of our time of prayer we feel no better than we started. We are not helped if we think that there is a technique which once mastered will open the door into the heavenly kingdom. Techniques do help to start us off: learning about prayer from those who have prayed over the years helps. But in the end we have to understand why we pray it and then just do it. Prayer is something we practice.

Prayer is not an end in itself. It is about God communicating with us. Its long term aim is to help us conform our wills to the will of God, because what God will for us and for all is life and health and freedom

Thy kingdom come; thy will be done.

It is to be in God’s presence, the creature with the Creator.

The first and main thing we have to realise in prayer is that we cannot make it work or “happen.” However we are going to pray, we simply place ourselves in God’s presence to wait on him, attend to him and to receive from him. We are not passive because we try to be awake and alert but we are not the prime movers, either. All we can do is put ourselves there, make ourselves available and trust. If we persevere God, who makes the buried seeds sprout out of sight in the dark earth, will grow from seeds hidden deep within us, his fruit in due season. If we persevere we will begin to find that prayer “works” but explaining how it works, well that is not an easy thing.

Easter – a family affair?

Holy Week and Easter Day are such intense experiences.  This year was especially true for me as I led my first Holy Week retreat at Launde Abbey.  From the Monday evening of Holy Week until the morning of Maundy Thursday, nineteen of us considered the Holy Week themes in depth.  On Maundy Thursday I went to three Eucharists – many clergy did the same; each one spoke differently and deeply into the profound journey we were making.  The first Eucharist was with the retreatants, our last celebration before returning to our own churches and the weekend ahead.  The second Eucharist was the Chrism Mass at Leicester Cathedral when clergy come together to renew their ordination vows with their bishop and many of their congregations.  This was a powerful experience of being alongside colleagues, who share an understanding of and sympathy for the role to which God has called us.  The third was back at Launde Abbey again where a new group of people, students training for the ministry, had joined the community for a week.  For the next two or three days, through the silence of Good Friday and Holy Saturday and into the heady joy of Easter Day we moved together and separately as we shared some things and went our own ways with others.

And now we are in Easter Week.  The students are studying and the community is moving gently back into its usual routine.  There is a slight loss of the energy and impetus that is necessary to propel one through the lead up to and celebration of Easter Day, but there is also a quiet warmth as we read Luke’s resurrection stories each day and let them speak to us anew.  There is also a more conscious sense for me this year of the Eucharist as sharing with others.  Three Eucharists on the same day and on the same theme can be vastly different because the people make them so.  The Eucharist is communion with God and people.

When I was first confirmed (way back in the Stone Ages) accepted wisdom was that you only received Communion once a day.  If you happened to go to a second Eucharist you attended but you did not receive.  The thinking behind this was that the receiving of communion was between God and you and you did not need to receive the host again on the same day.  Indeed to do so was almost to denigrate the gift of God and to question its facility.  At some time this thinking changed and we realised Eucharists are family affairs, family parties and one always eats at parties!  So on Maundy Thursday this year I went to three parties with three different sets of people and each one was a joyful celebration.  And this was because although we were all different we had one very important thing in common: Christ.