‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’
Luke 11.1
What was it about his prayer that prompted the disciple to ask Jesus to teach them? Matthew 6 provides that teaching on prayer in solitude: “whenever you [singular] pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (v6) as well as in community: “When you [plural] are praying, do not heap up empty phrases… Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven…” (vv 7,9; see also Luke 11.2).
The Lord’s Prayer runs through the whole of our spoken liturgy. We say it together at every service of Holy Communion. When compiling the Book of Common Prayer, Archbishop Cranmer took the teaching ‘whenever you pray’ literally, so it appears in both the prayer at the beginning and near the end of Morning and Evening Prayer. Because it is so familiar, there is a risk that we simply parrot it. Then it also becomes a heaping up.
But it can be and is prayed by individuals too. The following are two suggestions for private prayer practice that could also deepen our attentiveness during corporate prayer.
A. Chew over each line of the Prayer one by one. Take ‘thy kingdom come.’ What did Jesus mean by ‘kingdom’? What might it mean for you today? For your relationships, for the church, the world? What of ‘thy’? Whose kingdom? And ‘come’, past, present and future? What are you and the church doing to welcome that coming? You could ask the three questions I wrote about in April: How am I experiencing this? How would I say this? What is this asking of me? Try free-writing, or painting it. Then offer it all to God and simply sit, repeating the phrase slowly and silently, letting it lead you into encounter.
B. Follow Simone Weil’s practice of saying the whole Prayer through once every day with absolutely pure attention. If your attention wanders in the slightest, begin again until you have succeeded. She wrote in Waiting for God, “The effect of this practice is extraordinary and surprises me every time, for, although I experience it each day, it exceeds my expectation at each repetition.” (see p71f of this translation; pdf). You could also experiment with your posture: sitting with hands open on knees, standing with arms raised, kneeling.
Lord, teach us to pray.
Our Father in heaven,
Common Worship
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.
See also Thy Kingdom Come, a global wave of prayer during Ascensiontide, 18-28 May
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This is one of a series of articles appearing in Exeter Cathedral’s monthly news, complementing the material I contributed to the “Explore Prayer” section of the Cathedral website. I hope you find them helpful.
