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This evening is the conclusion of a seven-part sermon series we have entitled, “Teach Us to Pray,” which was the very request the disciples made of Jesus.  This evening I will speak about the Prayer of Petition.  The English word “petition” comes from the Latin petitionem, which is a request or solicitation.  The Prayer of Petition is asking God for help or healing or hope – whatever may be our need or our awareness.  Petitionary prayer is the most spontaneous prayer, the most uncensored prayer, the prayer that tumbles off our lips without coaching when the demands of life are too great and we feel too small.  I have heard people pray specifically for parking places, for the rain to come, for the sun to appear, for a job, for protection, for passing an examination, for someone to be well, for someone not to die.  You may have your own experience of praying very particularly, very specifically for someone or something.

I can still remember my own prayer of petition at one point when I was in junior high school.

• I prayed on my knees beside my bed; I prayed with my hands tightly folded, my back straight; I prayed with eyes closed, absolutely no peaking; I thought it best if I kept saying “please.”  I said “please” to God a lot.  And this is what I prayed for, the most important thing in whole world:
• I prayed very, very hard that I could get to try out for the seventh grade basketball team… which happened.
• I then prayed I would make the cut and get a uniform… which happened.
• I then prayed that I could mostly sit on the bench during the games because I was too self-conscious and too clumsy.  I was benched.
• I then prayed I would get a little court time to play during some games, but just enough for me to earn my basketball letter for my letter sweater… which happened.
• And this oh-so-fervent praying without ceasing was mostly for the sake of Jackie Claypool, whom I wanted more than anything to like me.  If I was a lettered basketball player, she would surely like me.

And that’s how I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Continue Reading »

 

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Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle: Acts 26: 9 – 21; Psalm 67; Galatians 1: 11 – 24; Matthew 10: 16 – 22

We continue tonight our preaching series on prayer, drawing as we have done for this series, from the Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer and its teaching on prayer. There we read that “prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.” [1] In addition, the Catechism teaches us that the principal kinds of prayer are “adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession, and thanksgiving.”[2]

Tonight we look at the prayer of penitence, a prayer most apt for us as we approach the coming days of Lent, but one equally appropriate as we examine it through the lens of the feast we mark tonight, the Conversion of Saint Paul, for penitence, to be life-giving, needs to be grounded not in fear of reprisal or retaliation but in our own ongoing conversion to the loving will of God. Continue Reading »

 

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This evening: the Prayer of Oblation, that is, the prayer of offering, of self-offering. Next week the Prayer of Penitence, the following week, the Prayer of Petition.  Each week we invite you for soup and conversation with the preacher following the service downstairs in the undercroft.

The Prayer of Oblation.  Let’s begin with baptism. In our baptism we are baptized into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We are baptized into his light, immersed in his light.  We are baptized in his Spirit, baptized into his love, inundated by his love, engulfed by his love, permeated by his love.  In our baptismal vows, we promise to respond as best we can to our immersion in his light, his life, and his love. Continue Reading »

“Teach us to pray,” the disciples asked the Lord. (Luke 11:1)

The Brothers of SSJE are pleased to announce our preaching series, Teach Us to Pray.

Each Tuesday in October at the 5:15 Eucharist, a Brother will preach on one of the classical forms of prayer, followed by supper in the Monastery Crypt for further conversation and questions.  Join us live if you can, or listen online the following day!

This series will continue in January with three more forms of prayer – Petition Curtis Almquist SSJE, Oblation Mark Brown SSJE and Penitence James Koester SSJE.

 

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Br. Eldridge Pendleton offered this homily on the prayer of adoration at the Monastery as part four of the Teach Us to Pray series, October 27, 2009.

Exodus 3: 1-15; 1 John 4: 7-19; Matthew 13: 44-53

Remember! Remember that in this chapel we are on holy ground. It is as holy as the place on Mount Horeb where Moses saw the burning bush and encountered God, and for the same reason. In this chapel for over seventy years many thousands of men and women have had equally momentous encounters with God, encounters that have changed their lives in profound ways. Some have discovered God for the first time here. Others, suffering or at life’s crossroads have found comfort and the answers they needed to make major decisions. The walls of this holy place have been hallowed and impregnated by their prayers. Many who worship in this space over time tend to forget its numinous quality, but are reminded of it by the comments of those who enter it for the first time and find themselves enveloped by its holiness. They tell us of the sense of peace they find here. Some even mention their conviction that God is in this chapel. We are on holy ground and should treat it with reverence and awe.

Continue Reading »

 

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Br. Geoffrey Tristram

One of the most wonderful experiences of my life was some years ago when living in England I had a sabbatical, and I spent a few months living in Egypt. Most of the time I lived in Cairo, and the part of Cairo I loved most of all, was not the famous parts with the pyramids and the sphinx, or even the medieval Islamic City of Cairo, but Old Cairo, Al-Qahira, south of the modern city, next to the Nile. The small walled city is Christian, Coptic Christian, and it is full of ancient churches like St. Barbara’s, St. John the Baptist, St. George, St. Mark. Continue Reading »

 

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Br. Kevin Hackett

This evening we continue Teach Us to Pray, a series of teaching sermons in which we examine the classic forms of prayer, as they are named in the Catechism of The Book of Common Prayer. The Catechism, some of you may know, was authored by our late brother, Bob Greenfield, and as Bob was a man of deep and faithful prayer, and in gratitude for his life and ministry, today we consider the prayer of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving, or giving thanks, as a form of prayer, is technically the church’s principle act of worship, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, and in many places, like this Monastery, day after day. The Eucharist is itself an extended prayer of thanksgiving.

That’s what the word means, actually, from the Greek, eu, meaning well or good or great and, kharis, meaning favor or gift or grace. Like so many other Greek words that have become part of the Christian lexicon, eucharist had no specifically religious meaning in the first century—it was a completely secular word and simply meant well-favored or good gift or great grace. And so we call that part of the liturgy where we take and bless and break and share bread and wine, the great thanksgiving.

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