Abstract
Once again Father Gerhard Lohfink has written a remarkably thought-provoking book on Christian prayer that presents both wise, scholarly research and utterly practical application. This larger and more comprehensive book is a very good complement to his little work The Our Father (Liturgical, 2019) from which I continue to draw insight.
L.’s book is written in ten chapters. The first three address such fundamental theological questions as who Christians believe God is, what such faith means in terms of our human lives, developing a clearer understanding of the Doctrine of the Trinity, addressing prayer to each person of the Trinity, and the important theological/spiritual question of one’s images of the persons of the Trinity. Through reflection both on scriptural narratives and prayers, and also historical church teachings and the practices of Christian prayer across the centuries, the author guides readers to some solid insights about the discipleship of Jesus. It is written in an easily engaging style and periodically invites the reader to practice one or more of the forms of Christian prayer he then discusses in more detail in chapters 4–9. This will be a good book to use as a basic text for a graduate course on Christian prayer, but I will also recommend it to any book group or study community interested in understanding the Christian faith.
For several years students and colleagues around me have spoken disparagingly of promises to pray for someone’s need or consolation. I recall especially the annoyance some good Christians have expressed in the face of assurances of prayer by the former President of the United States. Others have seriously questioned in class, discussion groups, and even in spiritual direction the purpose or value of petitionary prayer. The celebration of the Eucharist and other liturgical prayer is not reserved from criticism and questioning often by persons who express desire to know and follow Jesus while the practices of authors from other world religions or of secular, quasi-gnostic groups seem alluring to them as a route. L. responds to these very real concerns with more than a hint of exasperation and irony, but undergirded with a broad and compelling knowledge of the wisdom of the biblical tradition and of Christian history. Just as believers in Jesus’ real dual nature cannot explain how divine and human consciousness fit together in Jesus, but we are nonetheless called to be confident (as the disciples were) that in Jesus God was acting in person, so too believers must believe in faith that God is acting in history to affect its outcome. “Perception in faith is real perception, but not in accordance with the objectivizing methods of the sciences. Historians can affirm historical facts. That God is hidden behind those facts is something only faith can discern” (35).
The logical conclusion to such faith is that the Church can—and must—ask God to work in history. Since God works in history it is God’s will that history come to a certain conclusion. God sometimes acts through “agents” to accomplish such work, but the Church should be loath to speak about precisely how God acts.
But such reticence about God’s active engagement should not lead us to assert that only human agents can do God’s work. The author specifically protests various efforts at writing prayers which replace asking God to act as God is wont to do with directing God to change us. Eventually such prayers, addressed to one or another of the members of the Trinity, cease to be prayer and become a form of preaching to ourselves or our fellow Christians. L’s words on entering real prayer—spread across all the chapters—challenge our Western tendencies toward Pelagianism and Gnosticism. The author is convinced that the church needs to be more concerned about preaching and teaching authentic methods of prayer at the local level so that all Christians can come home to the reign of God. Prayer takes us home to the rich life of companionship with the Trinity. Such prayer of petition and genuine meditation, prayer with the psalmists and the communal celebration of the Eucharist, of praise and gratitude for what the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit are accomplishing—all take us to the fullness of delight in God’s Reign.
In the last “chapter”, L. invites us to remember and reflect on the opportunities for learning and practicing prayer that we have experienced. He models this in a way that makes it an exercise of gratitude—of prayer. His prayer helps us find the ways to come home to our own prayer and the life of intimate relationship it grants.