Reflection on Prayer
For many years my wife and I have attended the Advent Retreat at the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. It is a silent retreat held over 3 days. There is much worship and four addresses by a guest speaker.
This year, Bishop Peter Wheatly talked of some ways of praying. It might be thought that experienced Christians would learn little. However, being devout Jews didn’t stop the disciples asking Jesus for advice on prayer (Luke 11:1-4) and He gave them the template for all prayer.
Communal or corporate prayer is important. “Prayer on your own is difficult” said Brother Roger of Taize, and the Lord’s prayer opens as if several are praying together. Jesus famously said “When two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matt 18:20). “There is always more profit and consolation in the public offices of the church than in private acts of devotion” St Francis of Sales.
Despite these provisos, Bishop Peter talked a lot on meditative prayer and the Examen, both of which tend to be individual prayers. For meditative prayer he suggested getting comfortable and concentrating on breathing. As a focus of prayer, reading some scripture and praying on it can be useful. The Examen is a Jesuit discipline of reviewing the day in the evening and looking to see where Jesus was in that day.
Two things from his talks struck me.
“Let the earth put forth vegetation; plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” (Genesis 1:11). Bishop Peter called us the fruit trees of the church and, like fruit trees, we are all different. So, we pray differently and bear different fruit. As a fellow Waterways Chaplain quoted in a recent hub meeting: “pray as you can, not as you can’t.”.
The second was he said however you pray remember to breathe, and to breathe in the Holy Spirit and to breathe out love.