Two Views of Prayer

Two Views of Prayer Marcel Sarot Introduction On a well-known view of prayer, the primary function of prayer is that the believer talks with God, thereby doing what is minimally necessary to keep up the relationship with God. The idea is that just like human love relationships need communication to keep them going, a relationship with God needs the same. I have been raised with this idea, learning it as a matter of course in Protestant schools. Only later on, I learnt about its theological roots. And still later again, I learnt that it is not the only view on prayer. There is another view, which by now I judge to be more helpful. It is to these two views of prayer, each of which has its own rationality, that I would like to devote this homage to Christoph Schwöbel. According to Friedrich Heile , P a e is … a living communion of the religious man with God, conceived as personal and present in experience, a communion which reflects the forms of the social relations of humanity. This is prayer in essence. 1 Vi e t B ü e ag ees: asi fo s of p a e like petition, penitence and thanksgiving, all presuppose a personal elatio ith God. 2 And John Calvin lai s: prayer is the familiar intercourse of believers with God. 3 John Oman explains a similar view, giving somewhat more attention to the community within which people pray: Speech is the natural mode of communication between persons, because it enables both to think the same thought, each as his own thought, being a word only as it is spoken with the understanding to the understanding. […] Prayer is […] the intercourse of the family of God, wherein our brethren are included as well as our Father. […] Its chief task is in everything to give thanks.4 This ie of p a e is also the idea ehi d the p a ti e of uiet ti e, the ti e a Ch istia s (most of them Protestants, Evangelicals of Pentecostals) reserve for Bible reading and prayer, and to keep up their relationships with God. Websites on quiet time abound with phrases like: In God's original plan, we see He sought to have a personal relationship with Adam, but sin entered the scene... 5 Like any good relationship, quiet times with God need a little variety. 6 We must put our relationship ith God i pe spe ti e. It s a marriage. […] If He s my 1 Friedrich Heiler, Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion (Oxford: OUP, 1932; rpt. Oxford: Oneworld, 1997), 358. 2 Vincent Brümmer, What Are We Doing When We Pray? On Prayer and the Nature of Faith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 93. Christoph Schwöbel translated the original edition of this book into German: Vincent Bü e , Was Tun Wir, Wenn Wir Beten? Eine Philosophische Untersuchung (Marburg: Elwert, 1985). See also Christoph Schwöbel, Gott im Gespräch: Theologische Studien zur Gegenwartsdeutung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), : Die A ufu g Gottes i Ge et i t die Ko stitutio pe so ale Ide tität i der Gottesbeziehung als Erlaubnis der Anrede Gottes in Anspruch und bezieht so die konkrete Lebenswirklichkeit auf ihren t a sze de te G u d. 3 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III 20,16 (tr. Henry Beveridge). 4 John Oman, Grace and Personality (New York: Macmillan, 1925), 176–177. 5 http://preceptaustin.org/quiet_time_seven_minutes_with_god.htm, visited 27 August 2015. 6 http://www.justbetweenus.org/twentyqttips, visited 27 August 2015. 1 husband I need to REALLY act like I m married to Him […] Whenever I slip on spending time with God I tend to be o e tou h , o e emotional and people tend to get on my nerves. […] Wh ? Be ause I m empty. HE fulfills me. 7 Seen from this perspective, the p a e life of ost o di a ‘o a Catholi s looks shallo . Generally, Catholics are not very good at spontaneous, free prayer. When they pray, they often use fixed, formulaic p a e s like the Lo d s P a e and the Hail Mary, and their way of rattling these off frequently strikes outsiders as irreverent. While praying formulaic prayers in itself gives rise to questions – one would not dream of communicating with a human beloved by daily repeating the same love poem! – doing this without focused attention is even more questionable. Catholics themselves, on the other hand, perceive Protestant prayer practices with a mixture of unease and admiration. The unease is certainly experienced when Catholics are expected to contribute to free prayer. They lack the vocabulary and tend to stumble through their prayer. But even listening to others praying can engender feelings of unease, for instance when the Good Lord is asked to grant the guests a safe return to their homes. For a Catholic, this is somewhat over the top. But they also admire Protestants who can address their almighty Father both intimately and reverently, even if they do so in language that is alien to Catholics. For many years I have been living between both worlds, and thus I have gained ample experience with the mutual uneasiness. Until a few years ago, my own views were close to the Protestant perspective which I briefly introduced above, but in recent years this has gradually changed. This change has been occasioned by my discovery of the Liturgy of the Hours and the ideas behind that. B o I a a a e that the e s a o ld ehi d this t pe of p a e of hi h ost ti e of life, I had not the faintest idea. A different view of the Church is acted out in it, and once one is aware of that, the Catholic prayer practice that I criticised above becomes more palatable as well. Here I shall compare this Catholic view of prayer with the Protestant view, and analyse the underlying views of the Church. I will start from the Protestant view, articulate the Catholic view after that, and finally tease out the underlying views of the Church. Before embarking on this project, I should sound a note of caution. The Protestant view and the Catholic view of prayer do not exist. In practice I will summarize views which I came across in Protestant and Catholic churches in the Netherlands, and which became clearer to me through my esea h o p a e . The ie I aptize as P otesta t is a ideal type, parts of which are found a o g Catholi s as ell, a d the othe a ou d: t a es of the Catholi ie s a e fou d a o g Protestants. I might have used quotation marks to indicate that I do not intend these terms in a literal sense, but abstained from that to enhance the readability of this contribution. I do hope, however, that the views that I distinguish ring bells with my readers, and that distinguishing them helps them to see the rationality of both views as it helped me. A Protestant View of Prayer My first acquaintance with the Protestant prayer practice dates from kindergarten and primary school. Schooldays were opened with a story from the Bible and a prayer. Teachers thanked for health, nice weather, anniversaries etc. and prayed for good schooldays, in which pupils learnt a lot 7 http://www.heatherllindsey.com/2012/01/how-to-spend-time-with-god.html#.Vd7IIPntmko, visited 27 August 2015. 2 and were nice to each other, for a speedy recovery of parents and children who were ill, for peace on earth and food for hungry children, etcetera. God as ostl add essed as Al ight Fathe , a d that form of address was typical for the way God was approached: As a Father who is both concerned and reliable, but who is also omnipotent and far superior to us. Jesus was not directly addressed, but every prayer was concluded with the fixed formula I the name of Jesus Christ, A e . I additio to ope i g the da ith a Bi le sto a d a p a e , the p i a s hool also required the children to learn a Psalm – in a rhymed version – each week. Thus we learnt the vocabulary to be used in free prayer not only e a ples of f ee p a e , ut also f o the Lo d s Prayer and the Psalms. Whe I e a e a e e of a hild e s hoi late o , I oti ed that the prayer practice in the Protestant Church in which we sung was not much different. Children were encouraged to pray themselves, when rising, before meals and before going to sleep. We were taught that we could bring everything before the Lord, that there was nothing in which He was not interested or that He would judge ridiculous. In secondary school, I came in touch with Youth for Christ. The prayer practice there was not much different from what I already knew, apart from the fact that the importance of quiet time was more emphasised. While God was still conceived of as superior, the distance between God and man was smaller. I am grateful for what I learnt at school, in a Protestant Church, at Youth for Christ and at various other places. It was there that I learnt to address God, and it was there that I learnt how to address God. Probably, I would not have learnt as much in a Catholic school at the time. When I studied theology, prayer held centre stage in the lectures of Vincent Brümmer. These lectures were to form the basis of his book What Are We Doing When We Pray?8 Petitionary prayer formed the starting point of these lectures. This sat well with my experience that in practice, petitionary prayer is the most common form of prayer, even though one might argue whether this should be the case.9 Brümmer sketched a two-horned dilemma. Is petitionary prayer intended to influence God? A e p a e s … petitio s to i flue e God? 10 But God would will the best for us anyhow, even if we failed to pray. Is p a e , the , a ki d of editati e the ap hi h those ho p a pe fo o the sel es? 11 That can hardly be true either, for as soon as we would realise that prayer is intended not to influence God, but ourselves, we would stop praying. Brümmer solved this dilemma by suggesting that prayer is neither intended to influence God nor to influence the petitioner, but to i flue e the elatio ship et ee oth. If e athe suppose that petitio a p a e is ai ed at affecting the relation between God and the petitioner, and also take this relation to be a personal 8 Vincent Brümmer, What Are We Doing When We Pray? A Philosophical Inquiry (London: SCM, 1984); revised edition: Vincent Brümmer, What Are We Doing When We Pray? (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008). In this article, I refer to the revised edition. 9 On this question, the Protestant tradition is divided. According to the Heidelberg Catechism the most important function of prayer is to express thankfulness (S45 q116), but in answer to a question about the o te t of p a e it e tio s everything we need, spiritually and physically (S45 q118). In S50 q125 the Catechism arrives at a synthesis: those who bring all their needs to the Lord, may see in the fulfilment of these needs a gift of the Lord. Luther criticises the monastic prayer practice in the Roman Catholic Church, which is ased o the Psal s a d othe fi ed p a e s he des i es it as a Tag u d Na ht ö de is h heule u d u el , e ause he thi ks that this t pe of p a e is insufficiently petitionary. According to Luther, genuine p a e is Gott a ufe i alle Nöte . Ei Ge et, i de i hts o Gott egeh t i d, is kei Ge et. Martin Luther, Der Große Katechismus/Die Schmalkaldische Artikel (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 21977), 106, 109 (in the i t odu tio to the Lo d s P a e . 10 Brümmer, What Are We Doing? 15. 11 Brümmer, What Are We Doing? 14. 3 one, then petitionary prayer must be aimed at affecting both God and the petitioner. God is asked to act, and as petitioners we make ourselves available as secondary causes through which God can a t. 12 I suppo t of this ie , B ü e d a s o Joh Cal i , fo ho p a e as a pe petual e e ise of 13 faith. Calvin devoted the longest chapter of his Institutes of the Christian Religion to prayer.It is by p a e , Cal i a gues, that e a hie e those riches which are treasured up for us with our heavenly Father. 14 Also Calvin asks the question whether God does not know what we need without our asking Him. He answers that by praying we train ourselves to long with ardent desire for God. Moreover, by laying our hearts open to God and giving Him insight to all our wishes, we train ourselves not to entertain wishes of which God would not approve. In the same vein Calvin mentions a number of other important effects of prayer on the hearts of believers.15 For this it is important that we concentrate and do not let our minds wander. Our disposition when praying is crucial. Calvin articulates four rules of right prayer: (1) Reverently, which also means: Concentrated. We should not let ourselves not be distracted by wandering thoughts.16 In all prayer, public and private, the tongue without the mind must be displeasing to God. Moreover, the mind must be so incited, as in ardor of thought far to surpass what the tongue is able to express. 17 (2) From a sincere sense of want, and with penitence.18 (3) Humble, with suppression of all pride.19 (4) With confident hope.20 It is also i po ta t that e do ot i oke the i te essio of the sai ts, a d p a i Jesus a e only.21 Though fo Cal i pe so al elatio ship is o ke te , this te a ith justification be used to characterise the framework in which he places prayer. In prayer the believer intimately addresses her or his God. For Calvin the ideal form of prayer is not the prayer of a community of believers, but private prayer behind closed doors. The command to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) applies first of all to private prayer, rather than to the public prayer of the church, that is by necessity limited to certain hours.22 This does of course not mean that Calvin is in any way opposed to community singing and praying; on the contrary!23 His focus is, however, on the intimate intercourse between God and the individual believer.24 In the second half of the seventeenth and in the eighteenth century this emphasis on the personal relationship was reinforced by the emergence of pietism. In Germany, it as e p essed i h s like Jesu, ei e F eude a d I h ill di h lie e ei e “tä ke, i the Netherlands the Psalms were increasingly interpreted as spiritual songs of the individual. Psalm 23 Brümmer, What Are We Doing? 67– . I o e ted ause i to auses. Brümmer, What Are We Doing? 15, quoting Calvin, Institutes III 20. 14 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,2. 15 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,3. 16 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,4–5. 17 Calvin, Institutes, III 20, 33; cf III 20, 6. 18 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,6–7. 19 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,8–10. 20 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,11–12. 21 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,18–27. 22 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,29. 23 Calvin, Institutes, III 20,30.32. 24 Cf. Calvin s Commentary on Isaiah, ad 63:16. 12 13 4 then becomes an individual testimony that Jesus is my shepherd, or a petition of the individual for Jesus to e o e o e s shephe d.25 A Roman-Catholic View of Prayer Rattling off prayers and invoking saints are not the Roman-Catholic prayer practices that are most worthy of mentioning. Two other practices, closely related to each other, are more central to the Catholic liturgical and prayer practice. The first of these is the monastic prayer practice. The religious who participate in that spent a large part of their days – and sometimes even most of it – praying in their churches or in their own hermitages. It is their chief activity, and everything else they do is of subordinate importance. The second is the Divine Office. It belongs to the public image of priests that they recite their breviaries. Films and advertisements conjure up the image of a portly priest walking through the garden of his presbytery, mumbling the prayers from their black breviaries. Intuitively, we see this as an image from the past rather than as the depiction of a present reality. To say the least, this practice has become less visible. Praying the Divine Office used to be a complex and demanding task, requiring the priest to pray at fixed moments of the day a series of set prayers. These were: matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers and compline. The Psalms formed the main part of the breviary; in fact, the whole Psalter was prayed every week.26 For clergy, praying the Divine Office was not voluntary, but mandatory; according to the Code of Canon Law of 1917 it was an important moral obligation to recite all the prescribed prayers in full every day before midnight.27 In practice this often meant that a priest after completing his pastoral duties of the day, had the whole of the Divine Office of that Day still before him, to be completed before midnight. Under circumstances like these, it is not difficult to understand that when after Vatican Two lay believers stopped making their confession, many priests stopped praying the Divine Office. Like confession, the Divine Office was never officially abolished. It was simplified and modernised: besides lauds and vespers only the office of readings, the daytime prayer and the compline were left over. In addition, a number of other innovations took place, including the translation of the texts of the Divine Office into the national language. The current edition of the ordinary form of the Liturgy of the Hours dates from the 1980s and was published in four volumes.28 In spite of the simplifications it remains a complex whole, so that many seminarists ha e sighed at o e ti e o a othe : Lo d, tea h us to thu . Many of the priests who stopped praying the Divine Office in the 1960s have never resumed the practice. However, the younger generations of clergy attach value to the Liturgy of the Hours, and the theology underpinning this practice is of crucial importance fo the Catholi Chu h s understanding of its own prayer practice. That is my reason for discussing it here. It is important that we realise that the Liturgy of the Hours is in principle identical with the monastic prayer practice. It is 25 Personal communication by Dr Arie Eikelboom. At Vatican II, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC) decreed a change in this p a ti e: So that it may really be possible in practice to observe the course of the hours …, the psalms are no longer to be distributed throughout one week, but through some longer period of time. . 27 See Codex Iuris Canonici (1917), can. 135; on the internet: http://www.jgray.org/codes/cic17lat.html. 28 Liturgia Horarum, editio typica altera, Rome 1985–1987. It is conspicuous that the only available English translation was published in Africa: The Liturgy of the Hours: According to the Roman Rite (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 2009). 26 5 see as a dut fo the Chu h “C to e pe fo ed eligious, le i s a d othe elie e s together (and in that order). Officially, religious communities, convents and monasteries are expected to pray large parts of the Liturgy of the Hours,29 while other clergy are supposed to pray the Liturgy of the Hours as well, but the mandatory character is less emphasised than in the past, and it recognised that it will not always be possible to pray the whole of the Liturgy of the Hours (GILH 25, 28–30). O di a elie e s are encouraged to pray parts of the Liturgy of the Hours.30 What is the leading idea behind the Liturgy of the Hours? Why is the Liturgy of the Hours important? Firstly, praying the Liturgy of the Hours is seen as a fulfillment of Jesus o a de t to always pray and never give up (Lk. 18: 1), which fi ds a e ho i the Pauli e Pray o ti uall (1 Thess. 5:17; cf. SC 86). In fact, this is what 'Liturgy of the Hours' means: a liturgy that sanctifies (all) the hours. Through the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church intends to sanctify the hours of the day with prayer (cf. SC 86, 94; GILH 1, 11, 29).31 The Church does not see this prayer primarily as a p a e ful espo se to God s action, but as a continuation of an initiative of Godself, in particular as a continuation of Jesus prayer. The Gospels record how during his earthly life, Jesus was perceived to be a man of prayer (GILH 4); the Church sees it as her task after His Ascension to continue the prayer of Christ without interruption (GITL 28). It is for this reason that the Psalter constitutes the main part of the Liturgy of the Hours: the Psalter was Jesus prayer book, and by praying the Psalms the Church continues Jesus p a e GITL . The Liturgy of the Hours is therefore characterized as a source of piety and nourishment for personal prayer GILH ; f. a d “C rather than as personal prayer. In this respect, the Liturgy of the Hours is like other forms of liturgy: in liturgy, personal prayer can have a place, but not all liturgy is personal prayer.32 Therefore the Church prays with Christ (GILH 2; cf. SC 99). Indeed, because after Jesus Ascension the Church knows itself to be the Body of Christ, it may see the Liturgy of the Hours as the prayer of Christ Himself, Who as Head of the Church employs His Body in the continuation of His earthly prayer practice. In the prayers of the Church Jesus continues His own prayer.33 As Augustine already phrased it: Jesus […] prays in us as our Head. 34 An impressive illustration of how this view can o k out i p a ti e is to e fou d i Ala To a e s o t i utio to this olu e. He relates that when his wife Jane was dying of cancer and he no longer knew how to pray and what to pray for: In the depth of that valley the continuing priesthood of Christ became more relevant than I can begin to articulate – the fact that as I held Jane in my arms, the risen, ascended priest of our confession was present by the Spirit interceding on our behalf meant that we could repose in his presence and know that communion, that vicarious Gespräch, that is the 29 Congregation for Divine Worship, General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 2 February 1971 (=GILH) 24, 31b http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdwgilh.htm. 30 “ee, e.g., “C : The laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among the sel es, o e e i di iduall a d Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. Cf. Joh Paul II, Apostoli Lette Spiritus et Sponsa (4 December 2003), 14. 31 That is why it is important to pray each of the prayers, if possible, at the time of day set for it. See GITL 10– 11, SC 88, 94. 32 John Paul II, Spiritus et Sponsa 14. 33 GILH 6–7, 17; Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei et hominum (20 November 1947), 2–3 . 34 Augustine, En. in Ps. 85, 1 (PL 37, 1081); used as eadi g i the Chu h s office of readings for Wednesday of the 5th week in Lent; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 2616. 6 beginning and telos of everything. The prayer I held on to during that time and, indeed, later th ough a pe iod of li i al dep essio , as the Lo d s prayer recognizing that this was indeed the Lord s Gespräch with the Father.35 Since the Church sees it as its mission to continue the work of Christ on earth and since prayer belongs to the essence of that work, the Liturgy of the Hours is an essential part the liturgy of the Church (GILH 9, 20; SC 26). Even when one recites an hour alone at home, one takes part in the liturgy of the Church (GILH 108). The fact that the Liturgy of the Hours is no initiative of the individual believer, nor of the Church, but of Christ Himself, and that it is He who prays in us, is not without consequences for our mental attitude when praying it. Taken to its extreme consequences, it could be argued that when the Church is the Body and Christ is its Head, it does not matter whether one is involved head and heart in the prayers that one recites; the important point is that one recites them, and that Christ is involved head and heart. The Church has never drawn this extreme consequence. Again and again it has emphasised how important it is that we pray with devotion, reverence and attention (GILH 19, 104, SC 90). We are all familiar with the danger of reciting habitual formulas while our mind is so e he e else e ti el , 36 according to Joseph Ratzinger. Obviously, the daily recital of the whole Liturgy of the Hours with full attention is an almost superhuman task, and few will come near to that. The completion of this achievement can hardly be a condition for the meaningfulness of the Liturgy of the Hours. Praying the Divine Office meaningfully begins with faithfully reciting the prayers. Of ou se, o e t ies to keep o e s atte tio o hat o e is p a i g, ut in attentive prayer one must grow. In the first volume of his trilogy on Jesus, Joseph Ratzinger explains: In his Rule, Saint Benedict coined the formula Mens nostra concordet voci nostrae – our mind must be in accord with our voice (Rule, 19, 7). Normally, thought proceeds word; it seeks and formulates the word. But praying the Psalms and liturgical prayer in general is exactly the other way around: The word, the voice, goes ahead of us, and our mind must adapt to it. For o ou o e hu a ei gs do ot k o ho to p a as e ought ‘o a s : .37 Abraham Joshua Heschel is reported to have expressed a very similar view: The point is not that the liturgy says what we mean, but rather that we mean what the liturgy says. 38 To make this happen, it is of prime importance that we do not allow ourselves to be distracted by practical details like: On which page do I find the next prayer? What is the set formula to end this prayer with? One needs to e o e fa ilia ith o e s ook of hou s, so that o e fi ds o e s a i it o autopilot. Or alternatively, one should use one of these digital versions which require no familiarity with the liturgy. Even then, however, one will need the support and inspiration of the Holy Spirit (GILH 102). “ee Ala To a e s o t i utio to this olu e. This uotatio is also a e elle t e a ple of the fa t that the attitude that I here describe as Catholi is fou d a o g P otesta ts as ell. 36 Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (NY: Doubleday, 2007), 129. 37 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 131. 38 ‘a o d J. de “ouza, Benedict and Jesus: Teach Us Ho to P a , National Catholic Register 4 September 2007; //www.ncregister.com/site/article/benedict_and_jesus/#ixzz3pSqoHnbC. 35 7 This view of prayer, then, does not require prayer to e a authe ti e p essio of o e s deepest convictions or most heartfelt emotions. Reciting prayers that would not spontaneously well up in o e s hea t a e i h o e s spi itual life. To uote ‘atzi ge o e agai : Prayer … requires nourishment and that is why we need … to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God become subjective and end up expressing ourselves more than the living God. In the formulaic prayers that arose first from the faith of Israel and then from the faith of praying members of the Church, we get to know God and ourselves well. The a e a s hool of prayer that transforms and opens up our life.39 A d he p a e e p esses e otio s o attitudes that a e ot o e s o , o e eeds to ealise that our prayers should not be the most individualistic expressions of the most individualistic emotions, but that we pray in the name of the entire Body of Christ. This consideration does away with the problem of a possible discrepancy between personal feelings and the sentiments a psalm is expressing: for example, when a person feels sad and the psalm is one of joy or when a person feels happy and the psalm is one of mourning. … Those who pray the psalms in the name of the Church nevertheless can always find a reason for joy or sadness, for the saying of the Apostle applies i this ase also: Rejoice with the joyful and eep ith those ho eep (Rom 12:15) (GILH 108). By emphasising that prayer is a responsibility of the community and that the praying individual must conform to that community and must accept that attitude and attention are a consequence rather than a cause of the prayers recited, some of the strain is taken away from the command to pray without interruption. That strain can in extreme cases make people stop praying, because they do not succeed in praying with a sufficient degree of reverence and attention. A well-known example is C.S. Lewis, who in his autobiography described how the pressure to pray reverently and attentively played a crucial role in his losing his faith as a teenager. Le is des i es ho he had ee told that one must not only say one s prayers but think about what one was saying. The esult as that p a i g e a e a i tole a le u de . One had no sooner ea hed Amen tha it hispe ed, Yes. But are you sure you were reall thi ki g a out hat ou said? […] The answer, for reasons I did not then understand, was nearly al a s No. Very well, said the voice, had t you, then, better try it over again? Be ause he did ot su eed i p a i g ith suffi ie t atte tio , he sta ted to ask God for this attention – but then this prayer for attention was performed without sufficient attention also. The thing threatened to become an infinite regress. […] It had already brought me to such a pass that the nightly torment projected its gloom over the whole evening, and I dreaded bedtime as if I were a chronic sufferer from insomnia.40 If only Lewis had been raised in the belief that prayer was not some kind of obligatory achievement, but a work that Christ performs through the community rather than through the individual… Prayer and Church: Ecclesiological Conclusions 39 40 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 130. C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of my early Life (1955; rpt. London: Fount Paperback, 1977), 53–55. 8 The above comparison of Protestant and Catholic views of prayer makes clear that these views presuppose two different views of the divine-human relationship and of the Church. I want to end by spelling out these underlying views, not in order to polarise, but in order to create mutual understanding. In the Protestant perspective, prayer is used to entertain the relationship between God and individual believers. Therefore, prayer has to meet stringent requirements: Believers should in all openness and honesty, in their own words, place before God the concerns that are of innermost importance for them, so that their relationship with God can deepen. This should be done with reverence and attention, since a beloved requires attentions and God reverence. By putting our most heartfelt wishes before God we purify our hearts and learn to see the fulfilment of these wishes as a divine gift. The community that is the Church can help us in many ways in this process: it is there that we learn to pray, and it is also there that we come together to pray. In the Catholic perspective, the relationship between God and man is not primarily the relationship between God and individual believers, but that between God and the Church. In this respect Catholicism keeps a Jewish inheritance alive: In Judaism too, the relationship between God and His chosen people precedes the relationship between God and individual Jews. This emphasis on the community has implications for the Catholic view on prayer: the prayer of the individual is primarily seen as a contribution to the prayer of the community, not as a means of entertaining a relationship of personal fellowship. This can be seen, for example, in the primacy of traditional prayer texts. The authenticity of prayer is much less important than in Protestantism: by repeatedly praying the traditional texts, one gradually learns to mean them. The veneration of the saints also fits into this picture, once one realises that on the Catholic view, the saints still are part of the Church. When that is accepted, it can be seen why they deserve pride of place in the praying community: in heaven they continue the prayer practice which they had begun on earth. And if that is so, one can see why believers who live now invoke the saints to pray for them. The linking idea here is that of the Body of Christ, of which both the saints and those who live now are members. In the prayer of the Church, Ch ist s p a e is o ti ued, a d p a i g is a a to e de Ch ist p ese t in the world. Through the Spirit, Christ is organically united to his body, the Church, so that he is with her totus Christus, caput et membra, the hole Ch ist, head a d e e s . 41 In effect, this means that the Church is an extension or prolongation of the Incarnation. Summarising, the alternative views on prayer that I have presented are connected with alternative views on the Church. In the Catholic view, the Church has a much more central place in the Christian faith than in the Protestant view; on this view, the community has priority over the individual. Various metaphors are used to express the Catholic view of the Church, like that of the perfect society, the people of God and the mystical body of Christ.42 Though these are different metaphors that bring different implications with them, they have in common that they emphasise the community character of the Church, just like, by the way, the communion ecclesiology that has Ma k “au , Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox Together: Is the Church the Extension of the I a atio ? , Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43 (2000), 193–212, quot. 194. Saucy here describes a Catholic view which he does not support. Cf, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, Vol. 5: The Last Act (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1998), 131–137. 42 On the various metaphors for the Church, see the classic by Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (New York: Image, 2014). 41 9 recently become popular.43 Of course, some of these metaphors are used outside of Catholicism as well. The metaphor of the mystical body of Christ originates with Paul, and there was a time when the Catholic Church had reservations about it because it deemed it too Protestant. Nevertheless, none of these metaphors take center stage within the Protestant view of the Church, and in so far as there are dominant metaphors for the Church within Protestantism, they dominate Protestant thinking on the Church, not Protestant faith. Emidio Campi, fo e a ple, sa s o Cal i s ie of the Church: While his emphasis does not lie upon the church as an extension of the incarnation, Calvin nonetheless ascribes to the church a significant role in the economy of redemption. While the incarnation of Christ forms the primary and unique medium through which God accommodates himself to us, the church is a subordinate means God also uses to approach us and make himself accessible to us. […] The church ordinarily serves as the society within which faith is born, nourished and strengthened.44 As this quotation makes clear, the Church was important for Calvin because it facilitates faith. And faith, in the Calvinist tradition, is an individual matter: A relationship between God and the individual a . E e Ca pi, ho opposes the self-sufficient individualis ithi P otesta tis , ad its: To be sure, the gospel message individualizes, and faith is always an individual, personal matter, and within the Christian o u it , ea h pe so s i di idualit is deepe ed a d e ha ed. 45 Here we get lose to a ie i hi h faith is a out the i di idual s elatio ship to God, a elatio ship that a be nourished by the Church but to which the Church is not essential. To the Catholic view, on the other hand, the Church is essential, not only because Christ and the Church are so closely connected that o e a ot elate to o e ithout elati g to the othe , ut also e ause God s elatio ship is a relationship with the community first, and with the individual primarily through the community. Comclusion The comparison made in this article between two views of prayer is meant as just that: A comparison or an analysis making the differences between two rival views clear. In my personal autobiography I got to know the Protestant view as a child and was discovered the Catholic view only much later on, after having works as a professional theologian for some years. The Entdeckerfreude of that discovery, combined with the fact that the Catholic views now is more central to my own spirituality, probably resonates in parts of this contribution. I do not intend to disqualify the alternative view, however. Though I have presented both views here as ideal types, each with its own internal logic, which if developed consistently and in isolation from the other excludes the other, in practice I think that almost no theologian or ecclesial tradition has done so. On the contrary, in practice elements from both views are mostly combined,46 and the exclusive adoption of one of them may lead to See, e.g., Oskar Saier, Co u io i Der Lehre Des Zweite Vatika is he Ko zils: Ei e ‘e hts egriffli he Untersuchung (Ismaning: Hueber, 1973); Walte Kaspe , The Church as Communio, New Blackfriars 74/871 (May 1993), 232–244. 44 Emidio Campi, Cal i s Understanding of the Church and its Relevance for the Ecumenical Mo e e t, Lecture given at an international consultation in Geneva, 15–19 April 2009, 6; http://www.calvin09.org/media/pdf/theo/070905_Campi_Calvin-Ecclesiology.pdf. 45 Campi, Cal i s Understanding of the Church, . I added the efo e Ch istia o u it . 46 Such a combination may be found in an early article by Christoph Schwö el, Hu a Bei g as ‘elatio al being: Twelve Theses for a Relational Anthropolog , i : “ h ö el & Coli Gu to eds. , Persons Human and 43 10 undesirable one-sidedness. While the Protestant view can learn from the Catholic view about the importance of the community, the Catholic view can (and must) learn from the Protestant view the importance of a personal relationship with God. This mutual learning has to be done at two levels: the level of theology, and the level of practice. The clear distinction between both views, as I have attempted it in this contribution, is intended merely as a first step toward this aim. Divine (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991) . On the one hand, Schwöbel is primarily concerned with the relationship of the individual human being with God, on the other, he sketches this relationship along the Catholic lines sket hed a o e athe tha alo g the P otesta t. A o di g to “ h ö el, i di idual ei gs a e desti ed fo the pa ti ipatio i the elatio ship of the “o ith the Fathe th ough the “pi it . It is th ough faith i Ch ist that e a e e a led to do this, a d the Chu h is the pla e he e the e eatio of hu a pe so hood i the i age of Ch ist takes pla e. P a e is e a ka l a se t f o this a ti le. 11