Pastoral Prayer
A priest is to pray frequently. Sometimes it is as a designated or honorary pray-er, as at a church dinner. “Father N., will you bless the food, please?” Anyone could do this, of course, but it often falls to the priest. While it is a token moment, it is also an important one. This serves as a public acknowledgment of our dependence upon God and our gratitude for the multitude of “ordinary” blessings he offers us daily. The beginnings of meetings also fall into this category. “Father, will you open the meeting with a prayer, please?”Again, while pro forma, this type of prayer is serious business. After all, what church meeting wouldn’t benefit from more prayer?
Liturgical Prayer
Sometimes the prayers are liturgical. You often may recognize these by their introduction, “The Lord be with you,” which serves, not infrequently, as Anglican crowd control. It’s a baptized version of “quieten down now, y’all.” Even this introduction reminds us that all prayer ushers us into the presence of God the Father Almighty. We pray with a particular fear and trembling. Some of these liturgical prayers are the “property” of the whole church—laity and clergy—as in Morning and Evening Prayer. A few, like those prayers of absolution, consecration, and blessing, are reserved for priests. Liturgical prayer is also a serious matter; after all, we are praying for and with the church. Not infrequently, this is on behalf of all of God’s creation.
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Pastoral Prayers
Then there are pastoral prayers: those spoken bedside for the sick and dying, or by the gurney of a parishioner being prepared for surgery. Some prayers are for bereaved family and friends at the death of someone they can’t imagine living without. Other prayers are born of confession or spiritual direction; additionally, prayers come during late-night emergency phone calls or through emails from the prayer team.
“Father, the test results came back positive. Will you pray for me, please?”
“Father, I’m worried about my daughter. She doesn’t come to church anymore and she’s mixed up in some things she ought not to be. Will you pray for her, please?”
“Father, my marriage/career/faith/etc. is falling apart and I don’t see how I can go on. Will you pray for me, please?”
“Father, I don’t even know what to ask for, but will you pray for me, please?”
These prayers are a sacred conversation between the priest and the parishioner, and between the priest and the Lord; as such, they are profound blessings. Yet, they are also hard, sometimes, so very hard. Does anyone really presume that a priest knows better how to pray or for what to pray than does anyone else? If so, let me set the record straight. It is a priest’s calling to pray, as well as a priest’s privilege to pray. It is a priest’s blessing to pray. However, I suspect that no priest, and certainly not this one, feels “qualified” to pray or adequate to pray.
My rector, a faithful and grace-filled priest, recently confessed before the assembled body in a profoundly true and beautiful sermon that he is a beginner in prayer. We are all priests, all people of God. Priests pray not because we are experts or closer to God than others, but because it is our calling. Others assume (rightly, I hope) that we will be faithful to do so. If we say we will pray, we actually will, in the midst of our own confusion, through our own halting words.
Applying Prayer
I recently learned that a parishioner was in the hospital. I planned a visit for the following morning. This is an arduous situation—multiple long-term health issues and disabilities with frequent admissions to health care facilities. The night before, I began to pray about what to pray for the following day. As I drove to the hospital, I prayed about what to pray for upon arrival. As I stood by his bedside watching him sleep, I prayed about what to pray for when he awoke. That is, I think, the most challenging part of pastoral prayer: knowing what to pray for. You might think it would be easy: pray for the sick to be healed, pray for the unemployed to get a job, pray for the test results to be negative. It’s not easy at all.
The Practical Results of Prayer
I have seen a man profoundly changed—brought nearer God and transformed into the image of Christ—by prolonged injury and pain and disability. Would a prayer for healing have honored God and this difficult means of grace? What about an elderly patient considered terminal by her doctors? Of course, God is the Great Physician of both souls and bodies, and can heal the most hopeless cases. But, he does not always do so, and who am I to say if it is appropriate in this case? Might a self-sufficient and recalcitrant servant of God learn humility and dependence by job loss, followed by a prolonged time of unemployment and struggle? Indeed, or it might break him entirely and drive him farther from God. What do I pray for? I don’t know. I suspect no priest really does.
How, then, in the moment I am called upon, do I decide what to pray for? I re-enter the biblical story—its flow, rhythm, and plot—because I know the story must form the foundation of all true prayer. It must carry it forward in the lives of individuals and the church. I study (yes, study) the prayer book as a text teaching me how to pray. I pray the Psalms in all their depth and breadth of human longing, exultation, pain, and vengeance. I listen to the heart and words of the one requesting prayer and to the heart and words of the One to whom the prayer will be offered.
Priest: Man of the Cloth, Man of Prayer
Between the lines and in the silence between words, the answers are sometimes found. And I trust that my words are not, in the end, the most important part of prayer at all. If I say only, “Lord, have mercy,” it is enough and more than enough. If I pray amiss, reading God’s will badly, I know that:
…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26).
What did I pray for when the patient awoke? We talked, I listened, and I heard the great weariness in his voice and the sound of growing hopelessness there. And, in that moment, God answered my prayer and gave me His prayer for my brother.
Please ask a priest to pray with you and for you. The invitation into the breach between need and bounty, between sickness and health, between despair and faith, between life and death, is a profound gift. Likewise, the invitation to join with God in the good work he has already begun in the lives of his elect is all grace. Yes, it is hard, but it is the best kind of hard.
Note from John Roop: The hospital visit is a composite of several such visits; the brother mentioned is likewise a composite. In this way, I have sought to preserve the truth of such situations while honoring the trust that those who have granted me the privilege of receiving pastoral care have placed in me.
Image by: Monika Robak from Pixabay
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