December
10, 2000
"The
Four Kinds of Prayer -- Part II"
-- St. John Cassian and Abba Isaac
We will continue our study of "The
Conferences" of St. John Cassian. Last week, we began a study on
prayer which we will continue today. Next week we will study the Lord's
Prayer. As we approach the Christmas season and prepare to celebrate our
Lord' birth, this is a good time to study once again the ever- important
issue of prayer and how to pray. First, though, a bit of St. John
Cassian's biography.
St. John Cassian lived from about 360 to 430 and
joined a monastery in Bethlehem early in his adulthood. With his
companion, Germanus, St. John Cassian made several trips from Palestine
to the deserts of Egypt where they studied the monastic life from the
great desert fathers of their time. "The Conferences" records
their twenty-four dialogues with fifteen abbas. Cassian then arranged
these dialogues collected over a period of years into a monastic
"primer" that has been studied ever since by generations of
the faithful seeking to advance in spiritual wisdom. As such, this
spiritual treasure is not just for monks, but for everyone seeking
spiritual growth.
In today's newsletter, we will continue our study
of prayer. Unlike the previous conversations we studied between Germanus
and Abba Joseph, today's reading is from a conversation between Germanus
and Abba Isaac. This Isaac, incidentally, was a contemporary of St.
Anthony the Great, and is apparently the first of two "Isaacs"
mentioned in "Paradise of the Fathers." In the interest of
completeness (and for the benefit of new subscribers!), the last portion
of last week's reading will be repeated here. Now, on to "The Four
Kinds of Prayer."
BEGIN:
***** THE FOUR KINDS OF PRAYER
*****
IX.1 "Therefore once these aspects of the
character of prayer have been analyzed -- although not as much as the
breadth of the material demands but as much as a brief space of time
permits and our feeble intelligence and dull heart can grasp hold of --
there remains to us a still greater difficulty: We must explain one by
one the different kinds of prayer that the Apostle [note: "the
Apostle," when used by the Desert Fathers, refers to St. Paul]
divided in fourfold fashion when he said: 'I urge first of all that
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made.' There
is not the least doubt that the Apostle established these distinctions
in this way for a good reason.
2. "First we must find out what is meant by
supplication, what is meant by prayer, what is meant by intercession,
and what is meant by thanksgiving. Then we must investigate whether
these four kinds are to be used simultaneously by the person praying - -
that is whether they should all be joined together in a single act of
prayer -- or whether they should be offered one after the other and
individually, so that, for example, at one time supplications should be
made, at another prayers, at another intercessions or thanksgivings; and
whether one person should offer God supplications, another prayers,
another intercessions, and another thanksgivings, depending on the
maturity to which each mind is progressing according to the intensity of
its effort.
***** THE ORDER OF THESE KINDS
WITH RESPECT
TO THE CHARACTER OF PRAYER *****
X.1 "First, therefore, the very properties
of the names and words should be dealt with and the difference between
prayer, supplication, and intercession analyzed. Then, in similar
fashion, an investigation must be made as to whether they are to be
offered separately or together. Third, we must look into whether the
very order that was laid down on the authority of the Apostle has deeper
implications for the hearer or whether these distinctions should simply
be accepted and be considered to have been drawn up by him in an
inconsequential manner.
2. "This last suggestion seems quite absurd
to me. For it ought not to be believed that the Holy Spirit would have
said something through the Apostle in passing and for no reason. And
therefore let us treat of them again individually in the same order in
which we began, as the Lord permits."
***** ON SUPPLICATION *****
XI. "'I urge first of all that supplications
be made.' A supplication is an imploring or a petition concerning sins,
by which a person who has been struck by compunction begs for pardon for
his present or past misdeeds.
***** ON PRAYER *****
XII.1. "Prayers are those acts by which we
offer or vow something to God . . . that is, a vow. . . . According to
the nature of the word this can be expressed as follows: I will make my
prayers to the Lord. And what we read in Ecclesiastes: 'If you vow a vow
to God, do not delay to pay it,' is written similarly in Greek: . . .
that is, "If you make a prayer to the Lord, do not delay to pay it.
[NOTE: the missing phrases refer to Greek words and phrases that cannot
be typed here]
2. "This will be fulfilled by each one of us
in this way. We pray when we renounce this world and pledge that, dead
to every earthly deed and to an earthly way of life, we will serve the
Lord with utter earnestness of heart. We pray when we promise that,
disdaining worldly honor and spurning earthly riches, we will cling to
the Lord in complete contrition of heart and poverty of spirit. We pray
when we promise that we will always keep the most pure chastity of body
and unwavering patience, and when we vow that we will utterly eliminate
from our heart the roots of death dealing anger and sadness. When we
have been weakened by sloth and are returning to our former vices and
are not doing these things, we shall bear guilt for our prayers and vows
and it will be said of us: 'It is better not to vow than to vow and not
to pay.' According to the Greed this can be said: It is better for you
not to pray than to pray and not to pay.
***** ON INTERCESSION *****
XIII. "In the third place there are
intercessions, which we are also accustomed to make for others when our
spirits are fervent, beseeching on behalf of our dear ones and for the
peace of the whole world, praying (as I would say in the words of the
Apostle himself) 'for kings and for all who are in authority.'
***** ON THANKSGIVING *****
XIV. "Finally, in the fourth place there are
thanksgivings, which the mind, whether recalling God's past benefits,
contemplating his present ones, or foreseeing what great things God has
prepared for those who love him, offers to the Lord in unspeakable
ecstasies. And with this intensity, too, more copious prayers are
sometimes made, when our spirit gazes with most pure eyes upon the
rewards of the holy ones that are stored up for the future and is moved
to pour out wordless thanks to God with a boundless joy.
***** WHETHER THE FOUR KINDS OF
PRAYER ARE NECESSARY FOR EVERYONE ALL AT ONCE OR INDIVIDUALLY AND BY
TURNS *****
XV.1. "These four kinds sometimes offer
opportunities for richer prayers, for from the class of supplication
which is born of compunction for sin, and from the state of prayer which
flows from faithfulness in our offerings and the keeping of our vows
because of a pure conscience, and from intercession which proceeds from
fervent charity, and from thanksgiving which is begotten from
considering God's benefits and His greatness and lovingkindness, we know
that frequently very fervent and fiery prayers arise. This it is clear
that all these kinds which we have spoken about appear helpful and
necessary to everyone, so that in one and the same man a changing
disposition will send forth pure and fervent prayers of supplication at
one time, prayer at another, and intercession at another.
"Nonetheless the first kind seems to pertain
more especially to beginners who are still being harassed by the stings
and by the memory of their vices; the second to those who already occupy
a certain elevated position of mind with regard to spiritual progress
and virtuous disposition; the third to those who, fulfilling their vows
completely by their deeds, are moved to intercede for others also in
consideration of their frailty and out of zeal for charity; the fourth
to those who, having already torn from their hearts the penal thorn of
conscience, now, free from care, consider with a most pure mind the
kindnesses and mercies of the Lord that he has bestowed In the past,
gives in the present, and prepares for the future, and are rapt by their
fervent heart to that fiery prayer which can be neither seized nor
expressed by the mouth of man.
2. "Yet sometimes the mind which advances to
that true disposition of purity and has already begun to be rooted in
it, conceiving all of these at one and the same time and rushing through
them all like a kind of ungraspable and devouring flame, pours out to
God wordless prayers of the purest vigor. These the Spirit itself makes
to God as it intervenes with unutterable groans, unbeknownst to us,
conceiving at that moment and pouring forth in wordless prayer such
great things that they are not only -- I would say -- cannot pass
through the mouth but are unable even to be remembered by the mind later
on.
3. "Hence, in whatever state a person is, he
sometimes finds himself making pure and intense prayers. For even from
that first and lowest sort, which has to do with recalling the future
judgment, the one who is still subject to the punishment of terror and
the fear of judgment is occasionally so struck with compunction that he
is filled with no less joy of spirit from the richness of his
supplication than the one who, examining the kindnesses of God and going
over them in the purity of his heart, dissolves into unspeakable
gladness and delight. For, according to the words of the Lord, the one
who realizes that more has been forgiven him begins to love more.
***** TO WHAT KINDS OF PRAYER
WE OUGHT TO DIRECT OURSELVES *****
XVI. "Yet, as we advance in life and grow
perfect in virtue, we should by preference pursue the kinds of prayer
that are poured out as a result of contemplating future goods or from an
ardent charity, or at least -- to speak in lowly fashion and in
conformity with a beginner's standard -- that are produced for the sake
of acquiring some virtue or destroying some vice. For we shall be
utterly unable to attain to the more sublime types of prayer about which
we have spoken if our mind has not been slowly and gradually brought
forward through the series of those intercessions." END
from St. John Cassian (trans. Boniface Ramsey,
O.P.), "The Conferences," (New York: Newman Press,
1997), pp. 337 - 339
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