In
our American culture we have lost the sense of majesty and awe. Under the influence of popular cries to make
the Church more relevant and make it “seeker sensitive¸ there is a call to streamline
and simplify our worship sometimes trimming the very things that convey that
majesty and awe. At our home we have
various practices in praying the Daily Office[1]
and from time to time we have gone through periods of singing the Offices from
the Alton Abbey prayer books. A couple
of years ago a visiting monk who had joined us in singing Morning Prayer
remarked, “If you say the office instead of singing it, you can get through it
faster.”
I
didn’t think that was quite the point of praying the Daily Offices, whether
sung or said. For me the chief end of
prayer is just being with God. Remember
the four steps of Lectio Divina:
1.
Read the Scripture passage over several
times to anchor it in your mind.
2.
Reflect on its meaning, but don’t get
trapped in academic Bible Study.
3.
Respond in prayer. Prayer puts us in the place of responsive
obedience to the will of God. Bear in
mind that Responding to God in Prayer often calls for us to respond actively by
either doing something, or in some cases ceasing do to something.
4.
Rest.
Resting in the presence of God is the true end of Lectio.
Resting
in the presence of God is the true end of both Lectio Divina and prayer. Prayer has its foundation in the prayer life
of the ancient Church and in the worship life of the people of Israel. The Psalter was the prayer book of both the
ancient Church and of our Jewish forbearers.
That is why the Daily Offices focus on the Psalter and on balanced
readings from both Old and New Testaments.
In praying Morning Prayer, whether from the Book of Common Prayer or the
Alton Abbey prayer books, one prays with the ancient and continuing Church
across the centuries. The other major
strand of Prayer is called Habitual Recollection [recollecting oneself in the
presence of God]. Habitual Recollection
includes our informal intercessions for family, friends and events; along with
those short arrow prayers we shoot heavenward throughout the day, and the
Practice of the Awareness of the Presence of God. Hebrew expresses things in a concrete, rather
than in an abstract way. In Psalm 105:4b
the translators most often render it this way: “seek his presence
continually.” The Hebrew, in a literal
minded and concrete fashion, says, “seek his face continually.”[2] When you, in prayer or Lectio Divina, rest in
the presence of God you are resting not in a vague and ephemeral[3]
presence but before the face of God Himself.
Here
we arrive at the core of the matter for today.
If we miss the majesty and awesomeness of God we miss a major element in
our relationship with Him. We have to
understand the Transcendence of God before we understand the true meaning of
His Immanence. Only when we understand
the Majesty and utter Holiness of God can we understand the meaning of the Incarnation
when “he made himself nothing.”[4] When we say that He come down to our level it
helps to remember from what heights he descends. When we pray it is not just to a warm and
loving Father that we open our hearts, but to the awesome God, who says to his
children, “You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated
you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”[5]
