Fr Ben Garren

While all are agreed to pray together, each person will, of course, choose whatever mode of prayer he feels most profitable to himself. Each one should pray for those whom he most fully knows, and loves, and cares for. Knowledge of danger and need must excite a deeper interest, and kindle a warmer devotion, than mere abstract considerations or general forms. If the fire of love is once kindled it will spread. If we pray well for one, we shall pray better for all. —Richard Meux Benson, The Manual of Intercessory Prayer

Dear Siblings in Christ,

How do we enliven our prayer? This question comes up especially when we look at the standard liturgical forms we find in the Book of Common Prayer and especially when we look at the forms before our current version. What has become the norm for us is that we enliven our worship by changing the words and engaging prayer book revision. This has created beautiful new sets of prayer across the Anglican Communion but soon even these phrases can become familiar.

Benson provides us a key from an earlier age, when the prayerbook was centuries old and reform was on no one’s mind. He reminds us to not start with the words on the page but the intentions of our hearts that are supposed to engage those words.

If we take the moment to think about those we know are sick any prayer for the ill has more depth. If we consider the faces of the unhoused we see on our drives around town then whatever prayer for the poor we find will connect more to our lives and theirs.

Next time your prayers are dry or the need to pray seems empty place down whatever book you hold and reflect on the people you know for whom there is need to pray… and all the people you know are in need of prayer. In this you will be guided by Benson, the founder of the Cowley Fathers whose feast we celebrate today.

Pax,

—Ben