Pray continually through the liturgy - that which is working out a people - a new creation

“Then he told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart”.Luke 18:1 (NJB)

“PRAY CONTINUALLY” THROUGH THE LITURGY

The Church’s liturgy is, first of all, that: a way of life, the atmosphere created by the life of Christ, by the Epiphany of God, in order that this life might be born and grow within man …

Just as I do not invent my life, I do not invent my faith but instead receive it as it is.  Likewise I do not have to invent my prayer, but I receive Christ’s prayer, born of the Spirit of God and already existing in the community of his sons …

An environment is needed for the flourishing of every kind of life …  Much more is required: a living environment, circumstances that will allow the person who wishes to live to breathe, grow, and nourish himself.  If the environment disappears, so does the life …

The meaning of the liturgy, the “reason for” common prayer, can be summarised in this way: the Church is able to offer me the prayer of Christ and to welcome me into a living environment, a community, where this prayer can originate and grow …

A man is Christian only if he is a member of Christ, and he is a member of Christ only if he receives within himself the life that comes through communion in faith and the prayer of his brothers …

Christian prayer, therefore, will be misunderstood unless it is seen as being related to a community, a liturgy – that is, in a proper sense, the working-out of a people – but as it is completed and lived by Jesus.  It is no longer a matter of choice; Christ has decided for us the kind of prayer he wants.  Do we ever reflect on our doubts about prayer conducted in common?  Beyond laziness or our own meagre well-being, are there not more fundamental obstacles?  A false kind of angelism or illusion: the belief that we do not need to learn and to receive from others the nourishment of prayer, the manna?  Or else ignorance, or worse, a mere external, abstract knowledge that is contemptuous of things and liturgical signs, which, however, are simple, real, and close to us and are justified not as a kind of theatre, even a pious one, but as the living, active presence of a saving God? 

Father Bernard Bro, O.P. – a dominican priest

Taken from the Magnificat November 2012, Vol 3, No 1