Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s Epistle reading from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (12:1-11) reveals an important principle regarding prayer and our worship life.

Paul says that our words, when spoken with conviction, are powerful—not simply on their own accord, but by means of the animating presence that inspires them. The one who says “Jesus is Lord” does so only by the power of the Holy Spirit, whose gifts are the subject of this passage. Similarly, nobody who curses God does so by the Spirit, and we can imagine what kind of spiritual power would, in fact, delight in such words.

So then, we have the ability to exercise our faith and speak words by the power of the Spirit. But on the other hand, the words we might speak must be themselves be inspired, that is, proceed not simply from our finite understanding, but from God’s own Spirit in synergy with our own sincere belief. This means that we need to be taught to speak about God and to pray to him. This is why traditional prayer books are full of old prayers, including those attributed to specific saints. We, the members of Christ’s body, pray in community, surrounded by those saints in God’s presence, and using their vocabulary, even when we are “alone.”

Once we learn the grammar and vocabulary of the Psalms, of the Trisagion, the Gloria, and the saints’ own prayers, we learn how to speak to God in our hearts. Of course, we may speak intimately and extemporaneously to God or simply be quiet; but without an instructive element, our prayers may easily veer into self-expression and even delusion.

I suppose that I am making an argument for prayer books, but also for reflective prayer that is based on the tradition of the Church, and with language taught by the spiritual elders of Christian tradition.

Yours in Christ,

—Justin