Perspective: Liturgy and Silence

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Liturgy and Silence

In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness.  We don't know what we should pray, but the Spirit himself pleads our case with unexpressed groans.  The one who searches hearts knows how the Spirit thinks, because he pleads for the saints, consistent with God's will.

Romans 8:26-27 (CEB)

I'm finding myself at a loss for words

And the funny thing is it's okay

From "Word of God Speak" by MercyMe

The Lenten focus of my church this year was prayer,¹ and, toward the end of Lent, everyone in the congregation received a prayer book.  This book contains many different kinds of prayers, which are arranged into an order of prayer for each day of the week.  In some of the weeks since I received my prayer book, I followed the orders of prayer contained therein instead of the order of morning prayer I started using last year.

The order of prayer in my church's Lenten prayer book begins with a Psalm, a selection from the collection of ancient Hebrew prayers in the Bible.  Following the Psalm is a prayer of a saint.  In this case, the word saint refers either to someone who has been formally canonized by the Catholic Church, like St. Teresa of Avila or St. Francis of Assisi, or to some other great leader, thinker, or poet in the Church, like Desmond Tutu, Christina Rosetti, or Thomas Merton.  Next in the order is a reading from the Bible about prayer.  Next is a contemplative practice like a time of silence or a short repetitive prayer like a breath prayer.  What follows are prayers of intercession.  After the prayers of intercessions is the Lord's Prayer, the prayer that Jesus taught the Disciples to pray.  Following the Lord's Prayer is a prayer submitted by a member of the congregation.  The order of prayer ends with John 17:20-21, which is part of another of Jesus' prayers.

One thing I've learned from praying the prayers in this Lenten prayer book is that, when we pray, we are participating in something that has been going on for thousands of years.  The word liturgy, which is commonly used to refer to orders of prayer and orders of worship, is derived from a Greek word that literally means "work of the people."²  In my church's Lenten prayer book, prayers written by people I know appear alongside three-thousand-year-old Hebrew prayers, prayers written throughout Church history, and even prayers by Jesus himself.  The "work" of prayer has been going on for thousands of years, and it continues through this day.

Lately I've also started to see that, though many beautiful prayers have been written over the millennia, silence can be a prayer in it's own right.  There are some mornings when I don't have it in me to pray through my liturgy, so I simply sit in silence, trying to quiet my very noisy mind.  To borrow a phrase from one of the Psalmists, I try to simply "be still and know" that I am in the presence of God.³  God does not need us to tell God what is going on in our hearts and minds because, everything in our hearts and minds is already known to God.  St. Paul went so far as to say that the Holy Spirit searches our hearts and takes our very groans to God.  If we need to speak to God, it is because we need to admit to ourselves what God already knows about us.

An interviewer once asked Mother Teresa what she said to God when she prayed.  She replied, "I don't talk.  I simply listen."  The interviewer then asked her what God said to her when she prayed.  She replied, "He also doesn't talk.  He also simply listens."  She then told the confused interviewer that she really had no other way to describe what she experienced when she prayed to God.⁴

At the Anchorage, a contemplative prayer ministry in my area, participants are encouraged, as a centering practice, to take some time to "behold God beholding you in love."⁵  Pastor A.J. Sherrill once commented that, before he married his wife Elena, he hoped that they would never became one of those elderly couples who sit together in restaurants without saying anything to each other.  Over time, he came to realize the truth that such couples didn't have nothing to say to each other but that they simply didn't have to say anything to each other.  Simply being in each other's gaze is enough.⁶

When we don't know how to pray, we can turn to the many wonderful prayers that have been written over the ages.  Still, words are not always necessary.  I wonder if maybe God wants our presence more than God wants our words.  God is present wherever we happen to be, but sometimes we need to take some time to be mindful of God's presence.


Notes:

1. To listen to Lenten messages from my church, go to the following link and look for sermons from the series "Lord, Teach Us to Pray": http://trmethodist.podomatic.com/
2. Wikipedia: "Liturgy"
3. Psalm 46:10
4. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wrestlingwithyourself/2013/01/mother-theresa-and-prayer/
5. http://www.theanchorage.org/
6. A.J. Sherrill.  "Deeper Still: Luke 4:1-2."  Mars Hill Bible Church, 03/26/2017.

The photograph of the candles was taken by Wikimedia Commons user 4028mdk09 and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.