Evangelical Is Not Enough: Prayer
Continuing with reflections on the book, Evangelical Is Not Enough, by Thomas Howard I would like to turn to the chapter entitled, “Prayer, Random or Disciplined?” As I continue reading and reflecting upon this book, I come to see more and more the one thing that is tying each subject together and that is the Incarnation. Perhaps it is the influence of growing up in a predominantly protestant area of the world or some of the false sense of iconoclasm that had influence over the Catholic Church during my years as a child, but it took me quite a while, even as a practicing Catholic, to feel comfortable with many of the exterior symbols expressed in many of our church buildings. Thomas rightfully points out that,
All buildings are icons. They all bespeak something. The spare simplicity of a clapboard New England church speaks of the demure austerity and purity that should mark the Christian’s heart and , hence, the Christian’s mode of life. The World Trade Center speaks of power and commerce and money. The Taj Mahal evinces the delicate, almost weightless, grace of a beautiful woman and of a man’s love for her.
Where I myself once saw many church buildings as feeling like cold, manmade monuments built to serve a deep seated pride, I now see them as expressing in a material way the glory of God. It was Fr. Bob Barron who first pointed out to me that almost all of the beautiful European churches that I criticized with the argument that the money that built them could have been given to the poor, were in fact built by the poor. It also took time for me to see that my own words had been used first by one Jesus’ own companions, the one who was to betray Him.
Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. and given to the poor?” (John 12:1-3)
Once again it is the Incarnation that paves the way for representing Christ now in stone, wood, glass and paint. One of the most striking examples I can think of is the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth that symbolically represents Christ in both his divinity and humanity by having a church with two floors. The lower church is very plain and spare to represent Christ’s humanity and the upper church very lavish to represent His divinity. The steeple of the Church is an inverted chalice that represents God’s pouring forth from heaven to earth at the moment of Mary’s fiat.
Howard continues his reflection by moving away from the place to pray and on to the way in which we do so as Christians. He notes his own distrust for set prayers that follow a strict order and that are many times repeated. Like Thomas, I have encountered Christians who saw these prayers as being too rote and that it was precisely this type of prayer that Jesus came to abolish. However, if one looks closely at Jesus’ own practice we see that he in fact followed the Jewish rituals of his time. We hear that as a boy his parents took him to Jerusalem to take part in these rituals and we see this throughout the Gospels. We also many times hear him praying from the Psalms. My own experience is that both set prayers and more formal repeated prayers are important in our lives as Christians. Even after more than 30 years of hearing the same prayers of the Eucharist, my level of understanding of what lies beneath the prayers continues to grow. The prayers, far from becoming rote, have deepened.
Howard also goes on to share his realization that he needed to overcome a sense of individualism that kept him from opening up to different types of prayer. He says,
the sense in which all that doctrine and correction and instruction will take root in the Church and bear fruit in wise disciplines did not present itself to me. It was as though the Church had never really existed. It was as though the Bible had been written yesterday and I were the first man to open it.
One of the things that I have never understood in the criticism of those who do not believe in the teaching authority of the Church is how they themselves claim a sense of authority. No doubt many claim that the only true Christian authority is the Bible, in reality there is always more to it. It is not just the Bible that has been presented to me in every case when I have been faced with believers of this doctrine, but an interpretation of the Bible that came from the standpoint of the person trying to convince me that there was no need for outside interpretation. The real question that is usually overlooked is which interpretation is more in line with the truth? For most evangelicals it is a modern tradition that holds more weight and this is where I find problems in that many modern evangelicals’ interpretation seems very subjective and leans more toward placing our own experiences upon the Bible rather than searching the Scriptures as objectively as one can for the truth. In a sense we are really called upon to allow ourselves to be judged by the Scriptures, not the other way around. The Catholic interpretation of the Bible relies more on the entire 2,000 year history of the Church, paying special attention to the early fathers of the Church. We attempt, although not always entirely successfully, to take into account the wisdom of generations of Christians.
As always, your comments are welcome.
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