Henri Nouwen provides a refreshing account of how prayer relates to the compassionate life. For Nouwen, prayer is the "first and indispensable discipline of compassion precisely because prayer is also the first expression of human solidarity." Nouwen's theology of prayer, however, challenges the theology of prayer which is often espoused in the church. I would like to share a long quotation which captures this theology.
"One of the most powerful experiences in a life of compassion is the expansion of our hearts into a world-embracing space of healing from which no one is excluded...Prayer for others cannot be seen as an extraordinary exercise that must be practiced from time to time. Rather, it is the very beat of a compassionate heart.
To pray is not a futile effort to influence God's will, but a hospitable gesture by which we invite our neighbors into the center of our hearts. To pray for others means to make them part of ourselves. To pray for others means to allow their pains and sufferings, their anxieties and loneliness, their confusion and fears to resound in our innermost selves...To pray is to enter into a deep inner solidarity with our fellow human beings so that in and through us they can be touched by the healing power of God's Spirit...it is in and through us that God's Spirit touches them with his healing presence."
Prayer is a "hospitable gesture," not a "futile effort to influence God's will." Do you agree with this statement? How might this idea affect our practices of personal and corporate prayer?
The Contemporary Era: Part 3