Monthly Reflection: April, 2005 Reflections on Shared Prayer Fr. Sidney Griffith, S.T.   The essential elements of the life of the Missionary Servant of the Most Holy Trinity include prayer and shared faith. (Acts XII of the General Cenacle of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, 2003, Resolution 1) As a starting point for a reflection on prayer, the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar toward the beginning of his widely read book, called simply Prayer, seem particularly apt. He wrote, "Prayer is dialogue, not man's monologue before God. . . . [It is] a conversation, in which God's word has the initiative and we, for the moment, can be nothing more than listeners." (pp. 14-15) He means the dialogue God began with us in the words of the scriptures, and the dialogue He continues in the person of the Word of God, made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, who addresses us in both Gospel and sacrament. According to Von Balthasar, we learn to pray with the Bible in hand. He says, "In contemplating scripture we learn how to listen properly and this listening is the original wellspring of all Christian life and prayer." (p. 31) It follows then that on our part prayer is first of all a response, our response in a conversation initiated by God himself; it is by its very nature shared'. Prayer in the public life of the church has the same quality. Whether it be the Liturgy of the Hours or the Eucharistic Liturgy, they are by nature shared moments of lifting our minds and hearts to God in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the faith, as together we hear God's word and respond. In the Liturgy of the Hours, where we pray in the name of and for the whole church, the words of the Psalms come into our hearts as Christ's own words. We as his mystical body are the ones who utter them in our times, as he uttered them so often in his own lifetime on earth. We remember that in the New Testament, the book of Psalms is the most often quoted Old Testament book, and in the Gospels Psalm verses are as often as not found on Jesus' own lips. So as we pray the Psalms we are in a very real way praying Jesus' own prayers, and as their words shape our consciences they help form in us the very mind that was in Christ Jesus, as St. Paul liked to express it. (Phillipians 2:5) In his Bread in the Wilderness, Thomas Merton wrote, "The Psalms bring our hearts and minds to the presence of the living God." (p. 5) But they also bring us meditatively into the presence of our living brothers and sisters in the church worldwide. As Jesus' own songs of joy, praise, lament, or even cursing, when the Psalms sing in a mood not our own as we are praying them, they lift us out of ourselves and our own personal concerns. They allow us to give voice in Christ's name to the prayers of longing, suffering or rejoicing of those whose circumstances may not allow them a voice of their own at that very moment. Praying the Psalms is the way Christians pray in solidarity with one another; and with God's chosen people, truly shared prayer. I well remember the day in Jerusalem years ago when I boarded a bus to go from my apartment to my office at the Hebrew University. I took the opportunity to read the mid-day portion of the Prayer of Christians. A Hasidic Jewish man took the seat next to me and he too began to read his prayers; I looked over his shoulder and we were praying the same Psalm, he in Hebrew and I in English! The experience gave me a new sense of religious solidarity and shared prayer. The Eucharistic Liturgy, the church's prayer that calls us together as the People of God, is shared prayer at its apogee. In the Liturgy of the Word we hear the initiative God takes to address us and in community we respond. In the Liturgy of the Eucharist proper we are brought together in solidarity with one another as we receive within us the bread and wine that have become the Body and the Blood of Christ. In communion with him we come into communion with all the baptized who share his table. It is no wonder then that Fr. Judge spoke so movingly of the Eucharist as the sun and center of Cenacle life, words that have been enshrined in our Rule of Life. It is as people of the Eucharist that we come together in community as brothers and sisters in the Cenacle family to offer ourselves for the work of the church. The Eucharist, which is sharing at its utmost, prompts us to a further sharing of our very selves with one another in family life. The family that prays together stays together says the old saw. It's a truism because it's true. And I think it is the truth that is behind the admonition we often hear to engage in shared prayer. We think in this context of shared prayer as giving voice to the words in our heart in the hearing of those assembled with us in community gatherings. And this is surely an instance of shared prayer. But prayer can truly be shared in this manner only because we who participate in it are already people who have first shared in the church's prayers, which is sharing in God's own Word in the sacrament of His words and his personal presence, and responding with all our hearts. For me, this way of thinking brings the shared prayer of the liturgy in a very real way into the shared prayer of our lives together in community. Reflection Questions: 1. How much do I value praying in and with the Community? 2. How can we enrich our shared prayer and faith?