On Becoming God's Own Prayer in our World

[[Dear Sr Laurel, I am still very much immersed in Father Wenscel Cornelius’s book [Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam] and have also rediscovered Father Louis (Thomas) Merton, and at [the] prompting of something you wrote in a blog I picked up “New Seeds of Contemplation” which is wonderful. I have a question for you which you are welcome to use in the blog if you wish. I keep returning to something you wrote about the hermit eventually becoming “God’s prayer” and I don’t think I understand that. Prayer is usually thought of as the human part of a dialogue with God which might take the form of praise, petition, gratitude, lamentation, the sharing of the person’s life with God which begins (and often stays) at the level of speech or thought. I think that as we grow in our relationship with God our prayer becomes less what we do and more who we are and are becoming as God calls us to life and continual conversion. Is that living in harmony with God’s will becoming God’s prayer ? Thank you for all you do. ]]

Thanks very much for the questions! Good to hear from you again! I am glad you are enjoying Wencel's book. I learned it is out of print and difficult to get, so I am glad you were able to locate a copy!! Yes, I think you have the heart of my answer clear in your mind, and I also think it is important to push your understanding to a bit more radical position. You understand it as the human part of a dialogue with God. I understand prayer as a dialogue as well; in this case, however, the dialogue does not depend on human speech per se. Instead, it is about the human openness to and reception of God's own "speech" where God does not tell us stuff about himself, but rather speaks himself to us in a way where we are loved, challenged, called, and empowered to be our truest selves. I understand prayer not as the human part of a dialogue but, as 1) what happens when the Spirit groans within us and 2) we are empowered to attend to that groaning. As we heard in a recent reading from Paul to the Romans, prayer is always about God's activity within us, first and last. It is God's own activity within us that is the basis of our yearning for God or the resonance of our hearts to/with God; yes, we respond to that presence in various ways, and that too is part of the prayer, but even that response is empowered by God's actions within and around us.

 Another piece of theology that influences me to say we are called to become God's own prayer in the world may be helpful. Theologians like Ernst Fuchs and Gerhard Ebeling think about the human person as a language event. The human person is formed in response to every word spoken to her, every invitation to respond as a human person; it is her very nature to be response in this way. We are not just something that speaks. Instead, we are ourselves a form of speech-act empowered and shaped by the billions and billions of "words" that have uniquely addressed us and to which we have responded more and less fully throughout our lives, but especially by the word of God that is spoken within and to us. To some extent, the language event we are will be expressed in speech, but the truth is both broader and deeper than that. In everything that we are and do we will express the language event we have become. Acts of praise, petition, gratitude, lamentation are more or less partial instances of that larger expression we call "Self" and any one of these may predominate over the others at any given time in our lives and prayer; still, it is the whole person that is a speech act including these varying expressions. 

Thus, the speech act we are will include and represent other expressions as well. I once thought of myself as a scream of anguish. What I knew, however, was that such an inarticulate cry was less responsive than it was merely reactive. It would take time being shaped by God's Love in the many ways that love came to me to transform me into something more articulate and meaning-bearing. (Eventually, I would see myself as called to be a Magnificat.) What I came to know was that over time and in response to God's activity (self-expression) in our lives, we are formed to become more and more articulate expressions or images of God. The speech act we become in this way is what I am talking about when I speak of  "flesh becoming word". This also corresponds to what the Eastern and Western churches speak of as divinization or theosis. Word becomes flesh so that flesh can become Word --- that is, so human beings can come to flawlessly mirror their Creator. We grow into authentic human existence as we hear (or are heard/grasped by) and respond to Word in all of the ways that Word comes to and addresses us. 

John's Gospel is the clearest articulation of this dynamic. To the extent that Jesus responds exhaustively to God, he becomes utterly transparent to him and makes God real (implicates or reveals God) in space and time. Throughout his life, in his death and resurrection, Jesus fully incarnates the Word of God.  At the same time and in the same way, he reveals what it means to be truly and authentically human.  He is the Word Event par excellence and we name this Word event Emmanuel --- God-with-us. We might also say that prayer is less about what Jesus does (though of course, we know him as one who prays) and more about what he is --- a paradigm of prayer in all things because in all things Jesus is the One in whom God is allowed to work and reveal himself exhaustively.

You will remember that I wrote: [[However, in saying I believe the hermit (especially and paradigmatically) is meant to become God's own prayer in the world, what I mean is that in our radical self-emptying and obedience, we open ourselves to becoming the Word God speaks to the world, fully alive with God's vision, hope, and dreams for that same world. This word, like the Word Incarnate in Christ, will be the embodiment or articulation of God's own will, love, life, purposes, etc. We could say that Jesus comes to embody God's own prayer, where prayer is a matter of pouring out one's heart --- something in God that is always creative. When you or I pray, we pour ourselves out to God and our prayer is an expression of all we are and yearn to become. At the same time, in prayer (and thus, in Christ) we are taken up more intimately into God's own life. God's own being, will, and "yearnings" for the whole of creation are realities we are called on to express and embody (incarnate) with our own lives. This is what we speak of as being a "prophetic presence" (or an eschatological one). When we allow this foundational transformation to occur we more fully become the new creation we were made in baptism, a new kind of language or word event; we become flesh-made-Word and a personal expression of the Kingdom/Reign (sovereignty) and prayer of God. 

I believe prayer is about pouring out one's heart to God but always in response to and empowered by God's loving (pouring out his heart to and in) us first.  God shows us the meaning of prayer by pouring himself out and invites us to do the same in response. Eventually, it becomes impossible to disentangle one movement from the other and we live (pray) in God as God lives (prays) in us. Traditionally this ultimate form of prayer is called Union and it is the epitome of what it means to be human as we let God be God-With-Us.

I have written this piece in fits and starts so I hope it reads more coherently than that! If it raises more questions or needs clarifying, please let me know. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience!!