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INTRODUCTORY NOTE |
Dear
Reader, It
is with trepidation that we have chosen prayer as the theme for this
issue of The Missionary. It is easy to write on a subject where one is
expert, but prayer is a difficult topic, in which we can all claim to be
but beginners. Some might think that prayer is no one else's business
except their own, but many Orthodox Christians living in the West are
under a strong media influence, which colours their perception of the
world, and imposes it own images of prayer on their subconscious mind.
Many fail to realize what a remarkably rich repository of prayer they
have within their own Orthodox Church, perhaps thinking that what they
see on TV or in a friend's heterodox church is much the same thing. Our
ideas are also influenced by our parents and grandparents. Serbian
Orthodox children, growing up in the Diaspora, have a wide spectrum of
exposure to a life of prayer, ranging from none at all, to occasional
visits to their local Orthodox church ‑perhaps for Christmas or
Pascha, Baptisrns, marriages, funerals, Slavas, through sporadic
outbursts of prayer that arise from an urgent need (e.g. the ill health
of a loved one), to regular attendance in church and daily prayer in
their homes. This exposure will determine whether they remain in the
Holy Orthodox Church (and this, in turn, will determine whether they
will remain ‘Serbian’). Many immigrants, old and new, think that
teaching their children to be Serbs is paramount, and Orthodoxy only an
option. In the end their children and grandchildren will be neither. The
proof of this is in the five generations of immigrants and their
offspring on this continent over the last 100 years. It is unheard of to
find a third, fourth or fifth‑generation Serb, who feels, speaks
or calls himself Serbian, but who has forsaken the faith of his fathers,
the Holy Orthodox Church. Every
child will grow to adulthood with at least the need for prayer, and they
will fulfill this need one way or another, whether within or outside of
the Orthodox Church. Many of them will bear no resemblance to what one
would call prayer from an Orthodox perspective. Those of us who grew up
in the West are used to seeing various public expressions of prayer: at
formal luncheons, the beginning of special events, not to mention the aggressive
performances we see from almost every religious denomination on TV and
radio. The secular world around us certainly has its own solutions to
this 'problem' of Christian prayer. Even within our own churches we
often have a minute of silence which is 'offered' as a prayer for the
dead, (usually at church meetings). This is an example of how secularism
has invaded the Orthodox parish, and is the level of 'prayer' which many
schools now practice to keep from offending atheists and agnostics.
Surely we Orthodox can do better?! Despite the apparent diversity of
these exhibitions of prayer, they all have one thing in common: they
depend on and exploit our emotions. This is an easy trap for many of us
to fall into. We wish to go to a Church that makes us 'feel good' (not
that we should ever feel bad!). Did we get a good feeling from the
priest's sermon? Was the singing great or just mediocre? Did the incense
smell good? Were the priest and church president warm and friendly after
the service? How was the coffee? We might travel from parish to parish
each week looking for just the right environment so that we get the
right 'feel' from the service. Some Orthodox clerics have labeled these
people 'incense‑sniffers'. Yes, these are all very important
considerations, but in the end we must confess that what we are seeking
while shopping around for the right parish, is not God's kingdom,
but our own self‑satisfaction. Feeling good has nothing to do with
prayer. Prayer is not an emotion. If it makes us feel selfsatisfied,
it may have in fact failed us. Above all, prayer is work. The meaning of
the word Liturgy is the work of the
people. What makes us brothers and sisters is that we gather
together regularly at Liturgy, at the same place, to pray (work)
together for our common good. Brothers and sisters recognize one
another. After all, they live together in their Father's House. To come
to church occasionally or to wander endlessly from parish to parish
implies a desire not to participate in this collective work, but only to
satisfy one's own momentary emotional needs and desires. No family can
exist if its individual members think solely of their own needs,
changing spouses and even children until they find just the right ones
to satisfy themselves. This, of course, is how the average North
American family operates. It is not at all surprising that many Orthodox
Christians treat their Church family in the same way. It is only when we
pray together that we can feel united. It is no accident that the four
C's on the Serbian shield stand in the four corners of the Cross.
Political unity has no saving grace. It is only the unity we share
around the Cross of Christ which leads to salvation. And prayer is
central to this unity. There are a plethora of questions to be
asked: why should we pray at all? to whom are we praying? what are we
praying for? how should we pray? what does prayer actually do? does it
move God or us? It is impossible for us to answer any of these questions
to everyone's satisfaction, however, we are blessed with a multitude of
writings on prayer from the authors of the Holy Bible, by the very words
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as well as the writings of the
Holy Fathers and Mothers of Orthodoxy. All of the Orthodox writings on prayer,
whether from Holy Scripture or the Church Fathers, reveal a striking
uniformity of experience. In the Orthodox Church this experiential
aspect of prayer is nowhere better stated than in the saying that
one who truly prays is a theologian and a theologian is one who truly
prays. Both seek the same end, to know God intimately- to meet our
Creator face to face. Both must approach what they do in the same way,
whether they have the gift of putting their experience into words as the
theologian, or simply living their experience practically in their
lives. This is no place for theory, but for action. If our Orthodoxy is
not practical, then we are not Orthodox. Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of the
Russian Church suggests that before we embark on a path of prayer, we
should sit on a chair in the middle of a darkened room, keep everything
out of reach, and try for only 5 minutes to empty our minds of every
thought. Do not try to pray. Do not let ourselves daydream. Do not even
conjure up any mental images. Most of us who try this will have the same
experience - our minds will refuse to be still, images and thoughts will
pour in, and the harder we try to expel them, the more we will encounter
something we fear and avoid at all cost - boredom. There we sit, for
only 5 minutes with no external distractions. We are alone with
ourselves, and clearly there is nothing external to bore us. The only
conclusion one can reach is that we ourselves are profoundly boring. At
the other extreme, we learn from the Church Fathers, is the highest form
of prayer: to stand before God
with our mind in our heart. These two extremes both point to a space
which exists within each of us. Christ calls this space the heart.
It is the centre of our essence as humans. Many of the church Fathers
metaphorically refer to it as a garden. Deep within us is this garden of
the heart, which we as gardeners tend all of our lives in order to let
the seeds of Holiness, first planted in Holy Baptism, sprout and
blossom. Prayer is our most important gardening tool. Let us fervently
pray that one day our moments of silence will not be filled with profound boredom but
with the profound joy of walking with God in the garden of our heart, as
Adam once did. In the following articles and brief
quotations, we present our readers with a wide range of materials which
we hope will help to answer some of the questions which have been posed,
and as guideposts in our life of prayer. The Editors |