Thoughts on Prayer

So, I was visiting a parishioner in the hospital the other day, and I dropped by the hospital chapel, just too scope it out.  I picked up a brochure detailing the services offered, and was interested to find that it contained some general "Prayers for Healing."  Here, I will give you two of them - see if you can identify the differences:

Prayer One:
"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, cure me of my weakness, heal me of the sickness, and forgive my sins.  Expel all afflictions of my mind and body.  Mercifully restore me to full health.  You are my Lord for ever.  Amen."

Prayer Two:
"O God, the Source of all health and healing, so fill my heart with faith that with calm expectancy I may receive Your power to help me in this time of my need.  By Your grace and mercy through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, forgive my sin, heal my spirit, mind and body, and be present with me.  Guide my doctors, nurses, and other staff by Your counsel so they will have skill, wisdom and ability to help me.  Amen."

Okay, ready? 

And Another Thing...

I'm on a roll right now, so I might as well keep going.  But we'll switch up the topic, and I promise no gruesome pictures this time.  Mostly, I want to give a shout-out to Fr. Dwight Longnecker, who wrote a post entitled "The Smoke of Satan" the other day for Patheos.  His post is addressed to Catholics, although he mentions that mainstream Protestantism has nearly succumbed to the same problem.  Basically what Fr. Dwight is talking about here is our modern tendency to strip the Bible, and the Gospel message, of everything supernatural.  To bring it down to something nice and easy and soft, what I call "Fluffy Jesus," virtually devoid of meaning.  Of course, the good Father puts it much better than I:

So, the feeding of the five thousand wasn't a miracle. Instead the "real miracle" was that everyone shared their lunch. Everything had to be questioned and "re-interpreted" in such a way that it could be accepted and understood by modern people. So when we call Jesus Christ "God Incarnate" what we really mean was that he was so fully human that as he reached his potential as a man, he showed us what divinity looks like. When we speak of the Blessed Virgin we mean she was "a very good and holy Jewish young woman." When we speak of the "Real Presence" we mean that we see the "Christ that is within each one of us."

I hate this crap.

Me too, Father.  Me too.  But in a brilliant move, Fr. Longnecker doesn't just rant about the watering-down of our proclamation - he also declares what is so particularly heinous about this - the fleecing of the laity:

The reason it is so obnoxious and disgusting is because priests and clergy of all sorts still use all the traditional language of the liturgy, the scriptures, and the creeds, but they have changed the meaning of it altogether. They never actually stand up and say that they have changed the meaning, and that they no longer believe the faith once delivered to the saints. They don't discuss the fact that they have not only changed the meaning, but robbed it of meaning altogether. Instead they still stand up week by week and recite the creed as if they think it is true, but what they mean by "'true" is totally different from what their people mean.

Which leads to:

The faithful don't know why their church has become like a cross between a Joan Baez concert and a political activism meeting.

Amen, preach it, Father!  And you, my gentle readers, should go read the whole thing.

But now for the real question (because he's right that this is destroying contemporary Protestantism): How do we fix this?

Sound of Silence, Part Deux - My Experiences

I say all this because a few weeks ago during CPE, I went with a Roman Catholic friend to what is called Eucharistic Adoration. (Note to the Protestants reading this: take a deep breath.) I wanted to see what it was all about, and so I asked if I could tag along. As we walked to the chapel, my friend explained that the "host" would be in a "monstrance" on the altar, and that this was really just an opportunity to be in the presence of Christ and to pray. I know I kept asking him, "That's it?", and I'm sure I was looking at him like he was crazy. That is because what I was really thinking was, "So you sit in a room and pray. In front of a communion wafer. In a gold box/holder thingy on the altar. What is the point of this?" (As I said here, my Protestant heart still beats within.) But I went, and I'm really glad I did. We were there about 15 minutes or so, and the time just flew by. Afterwards, my friend asked if I felt like it was "idol worship", and I immediately responded that no, I didn't. (Probably with kind of an attitude, like, why would I think that?)

As I pondered it more over the next few days, I realized that the reason he had asked me that, and why I might potentially feel that way, is because I was supposed to recognize that the "communion wafer in a gold box" was the body of Christ (transsubstantiation and all that). Hmm...As I said, my Protestant heart....but it goes beyond that. I realized that, had I thought about it from that perspective and allowed myself to just focus solely on that aspect of the experience, I might very well have felt like I was engaging in idol worship. But I never got that far. Because inside the chapel was complete and total silence. I had been told that I was just supposed to pray, and so pray I did. Believe me, I had plenty to pray about that day. And the longer I sat and kneeled there, the more I found to pray about. And nothing, nobody, interrupted me.

It's been so long since I've done the silence thing that I forgot how important it was, and I've been "pondering this in my heart" ever since.

The Sound of Silence

"For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.  He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.  On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God." Psalm 62:5-7 

It's shockingly quiet around here today, in a way that it hasn't been for much of the week.  There have been lots of extra people that I don't know filling up the dorm rooms, shouting across campus, running up and down the halls, and being obnoxiously loud for the last few days, so it's a blessing to have a little peace and quiet.  (Wow, I sound old.  Next it's going to be "Get offa my lawn!")

Even during the school year when there's just the "normal" amount of people around, it is never quiet.  This building I live in is possibly older than Martin Luther himself, and sound carries extremely well.  The classroom underneath my bedroom has a piano in it, and I can hear every note played.  I'm right next door to the bathroom, so there's that noise. The guys that live on the floor above me are, I don't know, elephants, or something.  Huge, heavy steps, all the time.  Plus, when their girlfriends are over (and I am not the only person to register this complaint), well, let's just say it's the sound of Visions and Expectations being torn to bits...  That and there are always the friendly campus sounds of professors and students talking to one another on the sidewalks between buildings, cars coming and going in the parking lot, little kids running around the grassy areas and playing with their dogs, etc...