Jesus' Prayer and Ours

In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray with the words of the Our Father.  He further instructs that prayer is an intimate encounter with “the Father who sees in secret” (Mt 6:6).  Luke’s Gospel in particular shows us Jesus teaching by example, frequently withdrawing to remote places to pray.  If there is one scene in the gospels which epitomizes the prayer of Jesus, it is the Transfiguration.  And Jesus takes us with him to the mountain, to the place of encounter.  He is the way.  Today, I would like to reflect on some aspects of the story of the Transfiguration in respect to what we experience in prayer.

“While he was praying his face changed in appearance
and his clothing became dazzling white.” (Lk 9:29)
There comes a moment when something changes.  It is felt and not seen.  A change in pressure upon reaching higher altitude.  A change in atmosphere.  A sense of stepping into another realm.  One minute we are just sitting there, waiting for something to happen, or perhaps busying ourselves with some holy (or not so holy) thoughts.  The next minute, something happens.  Something changes.  There is a shift.  I am no longer alone, absorbed in my own inner wranglings.  Someone is present.  All of a sudden, I realize that I am a flower that is looked at.  A mug filled with hot tea.  An armchair that is sat in.  Analogies all fall short, so they may as well be entertaining.

“Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep,
but becoming fully awake.” (Lk 9:32)
The Bride of the Song of Songs says: “I slept, but my heart was awake” (Sg 6:2).  It can be hard to tell sometimes whether we are praying or sleeping.  Sometimes we sleep in God’s presence, especially when we are mourning the loss of an hour in bed.  Abba Poemen was asked what is to be done about monks who fall asleep at common prayer.  He responded that, as for him, he would like to take the brother’s head in his lap to give him better rest.  I like to think God does this for us too, taking our head onto his lap and letting us rest.  But there is a distinct experience of the quieting of our whole self, body, mind and heart, that yet leaves us sharply aware that something is happening.  We are awake, present, yet caught up in something beyond ourselves.

“‘Master, it is good that we are here;
let us make three tents’… he did not know what he was saying.” (Lk 9:33)
We want to stay where we are, to claim this experience as a permanent reality.  Of course we do – it’s blissful, it’s wonderful, it is good.  Have you ever caught yourself holding your breath during a moment of prayer?  This is like my version of pitching a tent.  If I don’t move, if I don’t even breathe, I can make this last, I can stop it from ending.  The silence that sometimes falls upon us in prayer is a gift.  We realize it is something special and we say to ourselves: Ah, now I am getting somewhere.  And yet silence is not virtue, it is not perfect love, it is not oneness with God, but just a platform, if you will, on which something more can be constructed.  Recently I read a small pamphlet on the prayer of the heart by a Carthusian, translated by our own Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO, which confirmed my intuition about this.  The author speaks of the temptations of silence, kind of like three tents.  The first temptation is that silence is an act of the will, an accomplishment, something that then tends to become closed to the Lord.  The second temptation is that the silence is the end of prayer, and our prayer is turned into auto-contemplation, rather than a living relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit.  A third, similar temptation is to become so consumed by the experience of silence in prayer that it becomes and idol; we look for nothing more, we become insensible to the still small voice that invites us onward.

“…they became frightened when they entered the cloud.” (Lk 9:34)
The Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto famously coined the term ‘numinous’ for the encounter with God.  In his book, “The Idea of the Holy” the numinous is understood to be the experience of a mysterious terror and awe (Mysterium tremendum et fascinans) and majesty (Majestas) in the presence of that which is ‘entirely other’ and thus incapable of being expressed directly through human language.  To say that one is frightened or terrified is not quite right.  We are caught up in awe and trembling, in desire and fascination and the irresistible longing to be one with what we encounter, to let go of what limits us and be taken by what utterly transcends us.

“…and spoke of his exodus
that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.” (Lk 9:31)
To go to the mountain of prayer means that we will encounter Jesus’ exodus, his Passover, his death.  This is not something we can avoid if we wish, as we say we do, to be one with him.  There comes a moment when, like St Paul, we hear something in prayer: “And now, as a captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me” (Ac 20:22-3).  It may take the form of an image, like a basket of summer fruits, or a boiling pot tilted away from the north, a burning brasier, or perhaps a knife.  There may be words to explain the image: “Whom will I send, who will go for me?” or “You will lay down your life for your friends.”  It is the moment of our call, and we may well waver: “Send someone else”.  But we can feel within that there is no-one else because the Lord is speaking to us alone.

“‘This is my chosen Son; listen to him.’
… Jesus was found alone.” (Lk 9:35-6)
It is the real Jesus, not the Jesus who is a product of my imagination.  Recently, I have been pondering how we can have an image of a person we know, an inner approximation of their presence, that is quite different from the reality.  This only becomes clear when we actually encounter the person in real life.  In my mind, he is so sweet, so obliging, just ready to listen and be compassionate and encouraging…but then when we meet face to face, it is immediately clear that the person before me has a backbone, a will of his own.  He is not less good, but more complete, than the 2D hologram I have created.  I think of her as being so ornery, such a contrarian, so ready to criticize and pick a fight and put me down…but then in her presence, the real person is sensitive, vulnerable, as much in need of affection as any of us.  I realize that I have been shadow-boxing a figment.  Before the mystery of the other person, we are struck dumb.

It is like this with Jesus.  We read about him.  We think about him.  Perhaps we daydream about him.  But then we meet him, we come face to face with him in that inner room, and he is…different.  Simpler.  More demanding.  Delightfully or perhaps unnervingly direct.  The only thing we can control about our prayer is whether we show up, physically, mentally, emotionally.  What happens next is subject to the vagaries of all personal relationships, the freedom of the other.  It is risky.  Will the real Jesus please stand up.  No one else will do.  The Son of the Father and not another.  Jesus alone.

“They fell silent and did not at that time
tell anyone what they had seen.” (Lk 9:36)
“My secret is my own,” says the Bride (Isa 24:16 – Vulgate).  Mother Agnes used to say that each one’s path to God is uncharted.  And yet, and yet, there do come moments when it becomes possible to lift the veil on our experience.  The situation has to be right; the person has to be right.  We do not speak lightly of the secret of our heart.  But when we can, when we are given a space and a listening ear, and most rare and precious of all, a heart that understands, someone who gets it; then, words come.  These words are “raids on the unspeakable,” to borrow an apt phrase from Merton.  We fumble to find them and hone them to their purpose.  No-one can do this for us, though other people’s words can sometimes help, can sometimes reassure us that our experience is valid.  To put words on our experience of God in the presence of another human being is the most liberating and enlivening act.  Everything I have said today is a raid on the unspeakable, and perhaps it was foolish of me to try.  But if it pleases God, may these words give life and freedom.

Link to the Carthusian article >

Image: Transfiguration, by Ivanka Lemchuk