I often think of the words of Christ, “But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”[1] Do not be like the “hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.”[2] It is better to be alone with God than to make a display of your prayer with pride. These passages exemplify so much of what Christ was doing. He healed in private; He spoke to people in private; He went to the Father in private. He shuts the door to the outside world and says, “Let’s be alone, for I see you in secret and I have your reward.” St. Gregory of Nyssa, a Cappadocian Church Father, says, “Prayer is intimacy with God and contemplation with the invisible. It satisfies our yearnings and makes us equal with the angels. Through it good prospers, evil is destroyed, and sinners will be destroyed.”[3]
In this intimacy, we enter into this passionate, fiery relationship with God, who becomes our lover like in the Song of Songs. We become the beloved, saying, “Draw me after you; let us make haste. The king has brought me into his chambers.”[4] Alone in the bedroom, we begin to experience a new form of fellowship with God—one where we come to intimately know the Father, and we learn to trust Him in inward knowledge about ourselves. You see the true beauty of God and remark, “Ah, you are beautiful, my love; ah, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves. Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely.”[5] But it is not us who starts this relational prayerful life—God is the one who initiates it first. For God, the Spirit dwelling in us plants the seed of prayer in us to simply respond. Hans Urs von Balthasar speaks of this seed by saying, “This seed has the power to become a mighty tree bearing blossoms and fruit, if only I would plant and tend it.”[6] How might we tend to it? By going to the gardener who first taught Adam how to tend. Go to the Father and learn to pray through simple dialogue:
“There is no such thing as solitary speech; speech implies reciprocity, the exchange of thoughts and of souls, unity in a common spirit, in a common possession and sharing of the truth. Speech both demands and manifests an I and a Thou. In prayer, moreover, man speaks to a God who has long since revealed Himself to him in a Word which is so stupendous and all-embracing that it can never be ‘past tense’.”[7]
In our intimate conversations with God, we open our hearts and our ears to His word. But it is not only us who offer these words to God. The Spirit leads our discussion to the Son who advocates on our behalf, being like a prophet to the people of Israel in the Old Testament. The Spirit relates our needs, wants, and desires to the Most High who sits on the throne.
Origen of Alexandria states, “For our mind cannot pray unless the Spirit prays first, as it were within earshot, just as it cannot sing out with rhythm and melody and tempo and harmony, hymning the Father in Christ, unless the Spirit which searches all things, even the depths of God.”[8] The Spirit, being our translator, searches our hearts and offers up our supplications before we have the words to put together, helping us to be honest and truthful with the one true God. The Spirit helps us to offer up not only thanks, but also grievances, like Habakkuk and David, being bold in their prayers, causing violent remarks to God. Habakkuk begins his prophetic remarks:
“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,
and You will not listen?
Or cry to You ‘Violence!’
and You will not save?”[9]
And David speaking,
“O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger
or discipline me in Your wrath.
For Your arrows have sunk into me,
and Your hand has come down on me.”[10]
If I may offer up my confession, dear friends in Christ, I have struggled in being so bold in my prayers. I have never held such grievances against God. This is not because I do not know God, but because I know our Holy God. Though He is merciful and good and has blessed me greatly, I dare not ask for more. He is mighty and frightens me. His thunderous voice, though quiet at times, ruptures my ears and causes me to throw myself on the floor of the throne room and speak the words of Job, “that it would please God to crush me, that He would let loose His hand and cut me off!”[11] How can I be so bold when God has been good to me? He sat with me and comforted me at my grandfather’s funeral, offering me a place to cry. It was God who led me through my darkest moments, offering me love and light with compassion. Could it be that I have not lived life if I do not blame God for the tribulations and sins those around me cause me? Do we require to be so bold in our prayers? Why must we come to God in violence? If I may be so bold as to quote John Donne,
“Earnest prayer hath the nature of Importunity; Wee presse, wee importune God…Prayer hath the nature of Impudency; wee threaten God in Prayer…and God suffers this Impudency and more. Prayer hath the nature of Violence; in the publique Prayers of the Congregation we besiege God, saies Tertullian, and we take God Prisoner, and bring God to our Conditions; and God is glad to be straightened by us in that siege.”[12]
How can I be intimate and not participate in a major part of intimacy: violence. This is why we say “break up” at the end of a relationship; it is the breaking of two people from one. How can we not talk about Christ’s intimacy with us and disregard the gruesome act of His death—the piercing of His flesh, the fracturing of His body. The Eucharist is a violent scene: the breaking of the body before all to see. Prayer, at times, is violent; we demand that God be God. We hold His Son ransom by speaking, for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ. “God, if you do not do this, think about how Jesus will be seen.” Our boldness does not come from us—it comes from God. If Origen is correct and the Spirit lifts up our prayers, then God is lifting our violence to Himself. The Son, who is our advocate, speaks violence on our behalf, being like Moses after the Golden Calf in Exodus 32:12-15:
“Moses said to the LORD, ‘See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider, too, that this nation is your people.” He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”
Moses reminding God of the covenant that was agreed upon is putting up himself to be bold to God on behalf of the people of Israel. Likewise, Christ is our boldness and our strength. In the times when we may not be bold, the Spirit relays to Christ our need for His boldness. May we let Him be so bold on our behalf. May we also be like the widow in St. Luke’s Gospel, “In that city there was a widow who kept coming to Him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’”[13] May we cry out, “God of justice, do what you do, I beg of it.”
In intimacy with God, we shut the door to be alone with the Father as Christ was alone with the Father. We become passionate as we begin to know Him better, offering up thanks for the daily things He does for us, but also, being bold to speak up when we need because “will not God grant justice to His chosen ones who cry to Him day and night? Will He delay long in helping them? I tell you, He will quickly grant justice to them.”[14] Our beautiful, amazing, mighty God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—invites us to be bold. We have been reconciled with God because of Christ, so we can go to the King of kings and speak boldly and intimately to Him. He knows our needs, wants, and desires, and gives to us abundantly in His loving grace.
God, may we be so bold to come to you openly, and you are so bold to come to us first.
[1] Matthew 6:6.
[2] Matthew 6:5b.
[3] Hilda C. Graef, “St. Gregory of Nyssa – the Lord’s Prayer,” Ancient Christian Writers – The Works of the Fathers in Translation (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1954), 24.
[4] Song of Songs 1:4a.
[5] Song of Songs 1:15-16.
[6] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1986), 13.
[7] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1986), 14.
[8] Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen, On the Lord’s Prayer, trans. Alistair C. Stewart (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 115.
[9] Habakkuk 1:2.
[10] Psa. 38:1-2.
[11] Job 6:9.
[12] The Sermons of John Donne ed. Potter and Simpson, (Los Angeles, 1953-1962) vol. V p.364.
[13] Luke 18:3.
[14] Luke 18:7-8.
