Teaching

We can do better at prayer. Myself included. Perhaps the reason our prayers lag, or why we find it a chore, or why it just doesn’t seem exciting, is because we expect an immediate payoff. Prayers, we think, should get some result. Either we should feel differently, or we should see some change (in us, in our situation, in others). And when we don’t, we think that prayer is a pointless exercise, something not worth continuing.

In our minds, we know that’s a wrong approach to prayer. But in our heart and, most importantly, in our will, we’re not convinced.

When I go down this path, and praying feels tedious, I go back to the basics. I ask myself, “Why do I pray”? Perhaps you also have asked the same question.

We pray because we want to maintain our relationship with God. That relationship is not based on what we can get from God. So praying is not like going to the doctor in order to get a prescription or to get better. And praying is not like going to the bank to get a loan, or withdraw money. We don’t pray to get things from God.

Neither do we pray to tell God what to do. Certainly, we want God to help our family and friends, especially when they have serious health or financial or employment concerns. But looking at God as the one who fixes our problems or tends to our needs does not help build a healthy relationship with Him.

Since prayer is about a relationship with God, we should not think about praying to ‘God.’ That’s too abstract, and too impersonal. We should, instead, remember that we are talking to our Father, and His Son whose personal name is ‘Jesus.’ When we realize we’re talking not to a Supreme Being but to a Person (a divine person, but still a real person), then our prayers will become more personal, and not just a to-do list.

With any relationship, the most important thing is communication. Not information, but conversation. Not relaying data, but expressing our hopes and fears. Our prayer to our Father should be the same way. We know that He knows us and what we need. But to talk with our Father, to converse with His Son Jesus, to speak with Him is to say both how we feel and what we think.

That’s how the prayers go in the Psalms—the prayerbook Jesus wrote and used. Those prayers are less about asking or telling God what to do, and more about talking to our Father and His Son about what angers or frustrates, what scares or worries, and what excites and encourages us.

That’s the kind of conversation that builds and maintains a relationship. And that’s what we want in prayer.

One important aspect to that conversation—so important that we too often overlook it—is the simple act of saying, ‘Thanks.’ Again, the Psalms are filled with many words of thanksgiving. And so should we.

Very simply, very practically speaking, our most common everyday prayer should be to give thanks to our Father every time we eat. Saying ‘Grace’ at every meal (before and after) is not simply polite; it’s the way friends speak to each other. And we speak that way both because it expresses our heartfelt feeling, and because we don’t want to take the other person for granted.

So this Lent, as a way to rebuild your relationship with God, begin by saying “Grace” (i.e., thanking your Father) before and after you eat your meals. As that becomes a habit, start saying thank you to Our Lord every time you receive some benefit (not matter how small or insignificant). And then, finally, add to these some words that express your fears and hopes. Using the Psalms, I’ve found, is very effective in doing this relationship-building, since it helps me identify thoughts and feelings that I often overlook.

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When Our Lord Jesus was eight days old, two things happened in succession. As he was circumcised, Our Lord was given the name Jesus (Luke 2.21).

His circumcision fulfilled a command by God in the Old Testament. That command was a visible sign of the covenant between God and His chosen people. It was also an indication that our mortality traces to our conception, and that our tendency to sin (known as concupiscence) is as inherited as our skin, hair, or eye color.

The holy fathers, however, see something else in St Luke’s mention that Christ is circumcised. This is the first day when Christ’s blood is shed, and so His circumcision both proves that He is truly human and also reveals that our redemption will occur in Christ’s bloodshed on the cross.

That Jesus is named on the day when He is circumcised is not required in the Old Testament; rather, it is in line with a long-standing tradition among the Jews. And, for Luke, the naming of Jesus is as important as His circumcision. For His name explains His purpose.

“His name was called Jesus” because that was the name the Angel Gabriel gave to both Mary (Luke 1.31) and Joseph (Matthew 1.18) on separate occasions. On the day of Our Lord’s conception, when Mary was told to call his name “Jesus” she was also informed that “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest” (Luke 1.32). Joseph heard the Angel’s command when he was dreaming, and was told that the name “Jesus” means, “He shall save.”

Most people give their children a particular name for a reason: to honor a relative or loved one or hero; to connect the child to a patron saints; in the hope that the child will have the qualities that the name describes or elicits; or simply because it sounds nice. However, very often in the Scriptures, names describe a particular human short-coming (like the name, Isaac) or an attribute or blessing from God.

Joseph and Mary obediently follow the Angel’s direction. Like Elizabeth and Zacharias, they don’t name the Holy Child after a relative, but submit their will to the Lord. For they understand that Jesus’ name describes what He will do: He will save His people from their sins.

Because this name is divinely given, and because it proclaims our salvation, the name of Jesus should not be used as an exclamation when something surprising happens. For this is the name by which we are saved, the name above all names, and the name which will cause every knee to bow. (Philippians 2.10) Therefore, this name should always be spoken with holy reverence, and as a prayer.

In fact, it is best to nod the head in prayerful submission whenever we hear or say the holy name of Jesus. By itself, this little action will remind us that Our Lord’s Name and His circumcision fit neatly together. For when Jesus bleeds at His circumcision, He already begins to live up to His name as the Savior who will sacrifice Himself for the sake of all creation.

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One of the themes for the First Sunday in Advent is to be ‘watchful.’ In the Epistle, St Paul urges us to ‘know the hour’ and in the Gospel Jesus tells us that ‘the kingdom of God is at hand.’ The reason for this watchfulness is aptly given in the prayer after communion: ‘that we may with worthy reverence approach the coming festival of our redemption.’

For the past 1000 years, the Catholic and Orthodox churches in Europe and North America have prepared for and approached the Feast of the Nativity with fasting and prayer. During these days, Friday abstinence is extended to the one-meal fast on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And additional times for prayer – most especially the radiantly beautiful Rorate Mass – have been provided.

There is also another precious custom kept primarily in the home that helps us be watching and ‘know the hour.’ That custom is the Advent wreath.

The advent wreath consists of two things: candles and greens. The candles remind us that, as the days shorten and darkness increases, ‘the Light who enlightens all’ will soon be born. And the greens remind us that this Light who cannot be overwhelmed is also the Life of all.

The Advent wreath helps us keep track of time by the way the candles are used. Four candles (three purple and one rose) prepare to count down the Sundays before Christ Mass. Each week, another candle is lit increasing our anticipation until, in the last few days before the feast, all four colored candles are burning.

Of course, the candles are not lit merely to provide light. Like the candles we light in front of our icons and statues, they are symbols of faith while helping us center our prayers. So also with the Advent wreath. This outward act of counting down does us most good when it is coupled with the inward and spiritual action of reading Scripture, praying, and singing a hymn.

Here’s my suggestion, based on long-standing practice: In the evening, when the day has wound down, turn down or off all other lights, and light the appropriate number of Advent candles. As these candles shed their cheerful light with their warm glow, say the Our Father and Hail Mary and another fitting prayer. You may also wish to read a brief Scripture selection and sing an Advent hymn or a song in honor of the Holy Mother of God.

Dedicating yourself daily to this simple devotional practice will heighten your anticipation of Our Lord’s Nativity. It will also make you mindful of the time, and will assist you in being ‘watchful’ in your words and actions so that your ‘rough places’ may be made smoother.

This devotional may also bring to mind that Our Lord comes both to disperse the darkness that too often infects our souls, and to warm the coldness that we sometimes feel toward God and others.

But let me take this one step further: On Christ Mass Day, replace the colored candles with four white candles, and keep up the same practice during each of the Twelve Days until the Feast of the Epiphany. With this routine, you will enter the New Year with the daily habit of prayer, meditation, and song. Can there be a better way to chase way gloom from our homes, and to be ever mindful of Our Lord’s nearness?

Wishing you and yours a joyful preparation for the Feast of Our Lord’s Nativity, I remain your spiritual father in Christ,

Fr John

Postscript: The ‘Prayers for Advent and Christmas’ that I’ve prepared are designed to make easier Scripture, prayer, and hymn selections.

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The words that you heard Our Lord Jesus speak to the Pharisees in the Gospel (Mt 22.34-46) are both subtle and profound. They are subtle because they contain not simply the answer that He wishes to give to them, but also a little bit more that they need to hear. And they are profound because they draw us out of ourselves and deeper into the mystery of the love that God is.

Let’s first consider their subtlety. The Pharisees wish to trap Jesus and so they send someone who knows the law, someone who knows the answer to the question he is going to ask. So this is not a curious question. This is not someone saying, “Gee, Jesus, what do you think of this one?” Rather it is a very tricky, craftily devised question to see how Jesus will answer.

What is the first commandment? You all know the answer. You know that the first commandment is that you shall have no other gods. But that is not how Jesus chooses to answer the question, even though that’s what the Pharisees and especially that expert in the Torah expects to hear.

Jesus simply wishes to focus on something that they have forgotten, something that too often is misunderstood by us, something that escapes us because it lives in our emotions rather than living in who we are. And so the first word out of His mouth is “love.”  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

Love God above all else. If you love something else more than God, then you do not yet love God. And to love God is to love God above everything else, to fear nothing but losing God, and to trust in God more than you trust anyone, or anything else.

Love God with all that you are and with all that you have. That’s the first commandment.

The key word is “love.” A word that has escaped these men, for they were not interested in loving Jesus. They were envious of him. They wanted to trap him and trick him. They wanted to see how they could get him. And anytime you want to trip someone up, anytime you want to get at them, anytime you want to stab them with some word, you do not love.

This is why Jesus then continues with more than what they asked for. For they asked for the first commandment and he told them, “This is the first and greatest of all commandments. But the second commandment is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Notice the order. “To love God is to love our neighbor” (St John Chrysostom). It does not say that to love our neighbor is to love God. For if we put the neighbor first, then we can determine who our neighbor is and how we are going to treat them. And too often our neighbors are people we like, not the people that we think are smelly or dissatisfying to us. And too often the neighbor is the one that we think we can manipulate and bully or use.

Now if we put the neighbor first and say “to love the neighbor is to love God,” then we might be thinking we can get away with something with God. That we can manipulate God and bully Him; that we can say to Him, “See what I have done for you; now here is something you can do for me.”

That is often times how our prayers tend to go, even if we don’t say those exact words. For our prayers tend to be, “God I did my part, now you be fair and do your part. Do the help that I say I need from you because I did the thing that You said I should do.”

To put God first; to love God by loving your neighbor—that means that we must love our neighbor in the same way that we love God: with all that we are and with all that we have.

To love our neighbor then is not to try and manipulate him, or to use him, or to bully him, or to see what we can get from him, or to bargain with him. To love our neighbor is to realize that any person put in front of us —not just the ones we like, not just the ones that are agreeable to us, but anyone in front of us—that is the person we are to love. And we are to love with the same love that we have for God: without any fear of losing or being short changed ourselves, without any trust in what we do, without any love for ourselves. That is how we are to love our neighbor because that is how we are to love God.

This escaped the Pharisees. It too often escapes us as well. But it escaped them because, as I said, they were envious, they were jealous, they were trying to trap him, they were trying to use his words against him. Rather than hearing what he was saying, they wanted to just listen to the words. Jesus of course understands this and chooses his words better than we do. He’s very precise in his language and hits the bottom note just exactly where it needs to be: on the word love.

Now, when Jesus proceeds further He becomes profound. He draws us out of our self, and into the mystery who God is. For our Lord says that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Too often we hear that backwards too. Too often we think that in order to love my neighbor I must first love myself. And since I don’t yet love myself how can I love my neighbor? And so my neighbor will get no love whatsoever until I’ve learned to love, and forgive, and be at peace with myself.

That’s not what Jesus says. He says love your neighbor as yourself. Not love yourself and then love your neighbor. That is too often how we operate. Our Lord is urging to do is to think about how we are to love ourselves.

We all know that within us lurks some sort of darkness—some darkness of the soul, some darkness of the mind. We all know that within us lurks some sort of fear and anxiety so that we are unsettled with who we truly are. No doubt, this is why we are constantly trying to shift or shape our identity and say to ourselves: “Maybe I fit here, maybe I fit there, maybe I should do this instead. I’m unhappy with all sorts of things in life: work, friends, family: all these things that annoy me.”

How is it then with all this darkness lurking within us, when we’re not very sure about who we are, with all this unhappiness—even during the times when we’re peaceful and at rest—how is it then that we can even begin to love ourselves?

We love ourselves when we listen not to what our voice says, not to what we think about ourselves, but instead hear the identity that God has given to us: the statement of love He has spoken to us. For He spoke in the waters of baptism the same word to you that He said to his beloved Son: “You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased.”

Now we have a choice. Do we believe what God says about us, that He loves us even though He knows our darkness? Even though He knows our flaws? Even though He knows we are constantly veering off in the wrong direction and are making promises that we cannot keep, or will not keep? Even though he knows all of that, He still loves us.

Do we believe what God clearly says to us? Or do we believe the darkness within us; what today’s prayer [collect] calls the contagion of the devil. The contagion of the devil, among other things, wants us to believe that we really are unlovable people because we cannot really love ourselves.

But God’s word is very clear and precise to us: “You are my beloved son; You are my beloved daughter.”

Now when that sinks in, when we can begin to believe that, and trust that, and live from that, and push aside the darkness and bad feelings that are still there—when we say to them, “Nevertheless, God loves me”—when we’re able to do that, then we can begin to love our neighbor. Not because we’ve fallen in love with ourselves, but because we’ve learned to see our neighbor as the same sort of person that we are: the one to whom God says “This is my beloved son, my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.”

That is the profoundness of the words that Jesus speaks when He says “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He’s not saying, “First love yourself, and then love your neighbor.” He’s instead saying, “Love your neighbor with the same sort of love that God has declared to you; because that is the only love that you can be sure is true for you; that is the only love that really applies to you. And so love your neighbor as another human that has been loved by God.”

That is hard for us to do because we want to push people away; we want to make sure that we somehow manipulate them or use them.

But if we love them as God has loved us, and if we love God with everything that we are and everything that we have, then we have not simply fulfilled the first and the second commandments. Rather, we’ve been filled with the God whose love is within us. And we’ve not just kept the rules. We have kept the love of God that he gives to us, and that he is for us, and that he is within us.

To this Lord Jesus Christ, the Father’s beloved Son who lives His love in us, belongs all glory, honor, and worship; now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen

Homily on St. Matthew 22.34-46 by Fr John Fenton for Pentecost XVII (13 October 2019)

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We have been led to believe that we can do whatever we want. So when someone tells us that we should do something, or that we must do something, or that we are expected to do something, almost immediately our hackles are raised, our pride rears its ugly head, and we insist to ourselves—if not also aloud to others—that we will do what we like, that no one will tell us what to do, that no one can make us do anything, and that we will make our own choices.

And this stubbornness is applauded by those around us. We congratulate each other for being resolute, for being our own person, for standing up for ourselves and our right to free choice. But in fact we’ve become the slave of our selfishness. We’ve succumbed to the deadly sin of pride.

Doing what we like, going our own way, insisting on our choices—that is not the mind of Christ that the Saint Paul speaks about in the Palm Sunday Epistle. What does the holy apostle say? “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” And what is this mind of Christ? He made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant … and humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death.

In other words, Our Lord did not do as He liked; He did not go His own way; He did not stubbornly say, “No one can tell me what to do.” Instead, thanks be to God, Our Blessed Lord Jesus willingly, freely, and gratefully submerged His thoughts and desires, and submitted Himself to His Father’s will, trusting that Our Father in heaven knows best.

In the Passion Narratives on Palm Sunday, Holy Tuesday, Holy Wednesday and Good Friday, you will hear this same theme when Our Lord Jesus prays, Not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Not My will, but Thine be done.

With those words, Our Lord not only determines to be our Savior; He also shows us the way of salvation. He not only demonstrates that He is holy; He also leads us in the path of holiness. And He not only conforms His will to the Father’s will; He also indicates that, if we truly desire to attain the kingdom of heaven, we must set aside our pride, we must put to death our stubbornness, we must refuse to go our own way, and instead follow in the Lord’s saving path of humility.

For in His tender love for us, Our Savior Jesus Christ both put on our flesh and suffered our death. In this way, He gained for us the salvation, the freedom from death, the forgiveness of sins, and the life in God that we desire and that Our Father has freely given. By His death, Our Lord opened heaven to us and obtained what we could never obtain on our own.

Yet we can stray from this saving way. And we can damage the holiness Our Lord gained for us if we let pride have its way by doing not what we must but what we please.

Let us, therefore, beg the prayers of the Holy Mother of God, of the Holy Archangel Michael, and of all the angels and saints that, aided and defended by their holy intercessions, we may follow the example of Our Lord’s great humility, and remain on the path of holiness by putting to death our self-will and by living solely in the Father’s will, who has loved us in His Son and by His Spirit with an everlasting love.

Fr John W Fenton

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