It's really too bad that the phrase "thoughts and prayers" has become a cliche, and has produced the general notion that prayer is a default "last resort," that it is weak or even meaningless.
It is true that prayer is not an instrumental thing, where some sort of higher power can be manipulated into accomplishing something the pray-er demands. That sort of instrumentality is more like magic than prayer.
Just as it is helpful to understand "person" not first from human experience, but from the Trinity (where Personhood is first established), so also is Prayer understood first within the Divine World of the "Tri-unity" of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The best and really only word that we can use to describe the relationship between the Son and the Spirit on one hand, and the Father on the other, is exactly that word: Prayer. The Son prays to the Father, as is seen repeatedly in the Gospels, and is seen most recently in the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost. The Spirit prays to the Father and searches out the infinite depths of the Father, groaning with words beyond the comprehension of any creature in supplication for Creation.
So it can be said -- indeed, must be said -- that "all good gifts" which comprise Creation (and Creation is only this, as evil is only privation of the good) are indeed the answer of the Father to the supplication of Son and Spirit.
Prayer in the Trinity is the complete -- with nothing left in reserve -- outpouring of Self to the Other to the point where there is a complete, indwelling of the Son and Spirit in the Father and each other.
And part of this outpouring is supplication, the presentation of all concern and desire for healing and the good.
But involving all of this and more than this, is the full participation in the Personhood of the Other, in the consubstantiality of Love that is the essence of divinity.
That is Prayer in divinity, in the Trinity.
And insofar as we humans participate in that very coinherence, we pray. We offer -- as an offering -- everything we are, everything we worry about, everything we desire that is good no matter how small or how impossible seeming.
We follow the more familiar example of the Virgin Mary, who interceded for her own family (likely her own sister) who ran out of wine in Cana. That is the model for "intercession" -- the essentially Christian act of praying for need in history.
And when we supplicate, we call upon the Father in the Name of His Son to realize the Son's Presence and Glory through the action of the Spirit -- which is precisely what happens in the Divine World.
In his majestic book "The Comforter" (truly the finest volume on pneumatology in the modern age), Fr Sergii Bulgakov gives wonderful, poignant advice on how we should pray in the modern age -- which is full of promise and peril, light and darkness, moments of goodness but tinged with seasons of tragedy.
We all know (or should know) that we are called to pray the Jesus Prayer with every breath we take (that is the goal):
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner."
Sometimes this prayer is shortened. Sometimes, simply to the extent of just praying the Name "Jesus," which is exactly what I think every child knows how to do even before they learn how to speak.
But on this day after Holy Pentecost, which we call "Spirit Day," it is important to remember that there is another prayer that should accompany every breath at the beating of our hearts.
And that is the Holy Spirit Prayer:
"O Heavenly King the Comforter, O Spirit of Truth, Who are everywhere present and fill all things. Treasurer of blessings and Giver of life, come and dwell within us, and cleanse us of every blemish, and save our souls, O Blessed One."
I pray for everyone and everything and anything. I do not worry if it is proper or theologically correct. I'm quite sure that God Who is infinitely wise, Whose Will is only a Good Will, is able to edit my prayers.
I never worry about the cynical phrase "Be careful what you pray for." God only blesses, never curses.
All good things are only answers to prayer.
Let us pray. Love -- the greatest work -- proceeds only from prayer, from Divinity to Humanity through the Godmanhood of Jesus and His Body.
Pray, because "with God all things are possible."
It is true that prayer is not an instrumental thing, where some sort of higher power can be manipulated into accomplishing something the pray-er demands. That sort of instrumentality is more like magic than prayer.
Just as it is helpful to understand "person" not first from human experience, but from the Trinity (where Personhood is first established), so also is Prayer understood first within the Divine World of the "Tri-unity" of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The best and really only word that we can use to describe the relationship between the Son and the Spirit on one hand, and the Father on the other, is exactly that word: Prayer. The Son prays to the Father, as is seen repeatedly in the Gospels, and is seen most recently in the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost. The Spirit prays to the Father and searches out the infinite depths of the Father, groaning with words beyond the comprehension of any creature in supplication for Creation.
So it can be said -- indeed, must be said -- that "all good gifts" which comprise Creation (and Creation is only this, as evil is only privation of the good) are indeed the answer of the Father to the supplication of Son and Spirit.
Prayer in the Trinity is the complete -- with nothing left in reserve -- outpouring of Self to the Other to the point where there is a complete, indwelling of the Son and Spirit in the Father and each other.
And part of this outpouring is supplication, the presentation of all concern and desire for healing and the good.
But involving all of this and more than this, is the full participation in the Personhood of the Other, in the consubstantiality of Love that is the essence of divinity.
That is Prayer in divinity, in the Trinity.
And insofar as we humans participate in that very coinherence, we pray. We offer -- as an offering -- everything we are, everything we worry about, everything we desire that is good no matter how small or how impossible seeming.
We follow the more familiar example of the Virgin Mary, who interceded for her own family (likely her own sister) who ran out of wine in Cana. That is the model for "intercession" -- the essentially Christian act of praying for need in history.
And when we supplicate, we call upon the Father in the Name of His Son to realize the Son's Presence and Glory through the action of the Spirit -- which is precisely what happens in the Divine World.
In his majestic book "The Comforter" (truly the finest volume on pneumatology in the modern age), Fr Sergii Bulgakov gives wonderful, poignant advice on how we should pray in the modern age -- which is full of promise and peril, light and darkness, moments of goodness but tinged with seasons of tragedy.
We all know (or should know) that we are called to pray the Jesus Prayer with every breath we take (that is the goal):
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner."
Sometimes this prayer is shortened. Sometimes, simply to the extent of just praying the Name "Jesus," which is exactly what I think every child knows how to do even before they learn how to speak.
But on this day after Holy Pentecost, which we call "Spirit Day," it is important to remember that there is another prayer that should accompany every breath at the beating of our hearts.
And that is the Holy Spirit Prayer:
"O Heavenly King the Comforter, O Spirit of Truth, Who are everywhere present and fill all things. Treasurer of blessings and Giver of life, come and dwell within us, and cleanse us of every blemish, and save our souls, O Blessed One."
I pray for everyone and everything and anything. I do not worry if it is proper or theologically correct. I'm quite sure that God Who is infinitely wise, Whose Will is only a Good Will, is able to edit my prayers.
I never worry about the cynical phrase "Be careful what you pray for." God only blesses, never curses.
All good things are only answers to prayer.
Let us pray. Love -- the greatest work -- proceeds only from prayer, from Divinity to Humanity through the Godmanhood of Jesus and His Body.
Pray, because "with God all things are possible."
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