four pillars of prayer

This homily was delivered at the Queens' College Chapel of Cambridge University, Choral Evensong - March 3, 2024.

"The Four Pillars of Prayer"

Good evening. I am truly honored and humbled by the opportunity to stand before you in this lovely place, and I am deeply thankful to our beloved Chaplain Reverend Anna for this invitation.

I pray that you are having a blessed Lent and wish you a joyous Easter. 

As we all gather here with our different creeds, ethnicities, languages, and stories, we are united in our love of Cambridge and our participation in the Evensong’s beautiful hymns and prayers.

When you think of prayer, what comes to mind? For some of us it may be the rushed, tired utterance of the Lord’s Prayer before we go to bed. For others it might be the silence of personal quiet time and meditation. For some it may be the enchanting voices of the Queens’ Chapel Choir.

My understanding of prayer stems from my own faith as a Coptic Orthodox Christian. Founded by St. Mark the Evangelist in the middle of the first century, the Coptic, meaning Egyptian, Church has shaped my sense of what it means to truly pray.

Regardless of the tradition that has influenced our understanding of prayer, perhaps we may agree that the etymology of the word “prayer,” derived from the Latin precari meaning “to beg” is insufficient. In the language of my people, we find a far more powerful etymology: “prayer” in Arabic is sal-ah, which is derived from the verb sil-ah, which means “to connect or form a relationship.” In this regard, prayer is actually connection – it is a relationship between the created and the Creator. Prayer is more than just words. It includes intentions, thoughts, and actions showing our need to relate to our Creator.

This evening, I would like to reflect on four pillars of prayer, tied to each letter of the word PRAY. 

·      To truly pray is to: Purify our heart so that God is our one desire and the object of our love

·      To truly pray is to: Raise our voices in thanksgiving and gratitude for God’s gifts

·      To truly pray is to: Ask that God makes His will for our lives apparent

·      To truly pray is to: Yearn for eternal connection and life with God

Firstly, we must purify our heart so that God is our one desire and the object of our love.

In the Beatitudes, the Lord famously states, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). With this promise and all the others in the Beatitudes, we may often misunderstand the meaning of the word “blessed.” To be blessed in this context is to be fulfilled or satisfied. Reflecting on the Beatitudes from this regard – those who are fulfilled or satisfied are those who have a pure heart – one in which God is the sole occupant. All of our emotions are ones rooted in our love for Him and all of His creation. 

At the start of every hour in the Coptic Book of Hours (Horologion), we pray from Psalm 50, entreating God by saying:

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit in my inward parts. Do not cast me away from Your face; and do not remove Your Holy Spirit from me. Give me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a directing spirit.

As we struggle through the weeks of Lent, we are nearing this joy of salvation. In the Cross, some find defeat and destruction, but we should find in it joy and justification. In the Cross, we witness a twofold promise. From the vertical beam, we are connected in our love to God. In the horizontal beam, we are connected in our love to all of God’s creation. Going back to our understanding of prayer in Arabic, derived from the word for “connection,” we may say that the Cross is the prayer that united and redeemed all of humanity. It was on that very Cross that Christ offered His own prayer for Himself, for His disciples, and for all believers, “that they all may be one” (John 17:21).

Secondly, we must raise our voices in thanksgiving and gratitude for God’s gifts.

St. Paul urges us to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thess. 5:16-18). 

To pray always and show gratitude in all situations is a tall commandment from St. Paul, but it is one that the Coptic Orthodox Church takes to heart.

Every service in the Coptic Church – from the liturgy to weddings, from baptisms to funerals – always begins with the Thanksgiving Prayer:

Let us give thanks to the beneficent and merciful God, the Father of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. For He has covered us, helped us, guarded us, accepted us to Himself, spared us, supported, and has brought us to this hour. Let us also ask Him, the Lord our God, the Pantocrator, to guard us in all peace this holy day and all the days of our life.

Thirdly, we must ask that God makes His will for our lives apparent.

Understanding and submitting to God’s will for our lives can be the most challenging aspects of our relationship with Christ. When we pray, we usually want something, and we want an answer immediately. We put God on a timeline, yet He is timeless. We want God to speak to us in our language, yet He is beyond words. In our prayer, we must ask therefore that God have mercy upon us and make His will for our lives apparent. When we ask this of Him with a genuine openness to accept whatever His will may be, He will respond. He speaks to us in mysterious ways, often when we are least expecting it – perhaps through a comment from a family member or through a passage in the Bible or through a sudden event. God has a specific desire and purpose for each of us, but He never infringes on our free will. It is our responsibility to meet Him through prayer and to work to make our will perfectly align to His will.

One of the most beloved prayers in the Coptic Church related to this third point is the Prayer for Guidance in the Book of the Hours. My favorite bit reads:

Lord, You are aware that I do not know what is good for me…Do not let me follow my tendencies, if it will cause me to be confused and fall. Keep me from slipping, help me, and let it be according to Your will. If You see it fit, grant me Your blessing to complete it. If not, remove this desire from my heart. You know all things, nothing is concealed from You, Lord I am Your servant, deal with me as You see fit, as I realize that I will have neither success nor peace unless I submit myself to Your will. Teach me to say in every occasion, “Let it be according to Your will, Lord, not according to my own.” 

Finally, we must yearn for eternal connection and life with God.

David the Prophet gives us a remarkable example of this aspect of prayer in Psalm 143 when he cries, “I spread out my hands to You; My soul longs for you like a thirsty land” (Psalm 143:6). 

Do we yearn for this connection and relationship with God when we pray? Do we express to God how much we want Him to work in our lives when we pray? For prayer to be a connection, there must be two points and an understanding of what it will take to remove the distance and divide between the two. This is what we achieve in prayer – God comes down to us and we rise to Him.

In the words of Pope Shenouda III, who led the Coptic Church from 1971-2012 and who is the subject of my PhD thesis here: 

Prayer is the yearning of the soul and being in the presence of God. It is the yearning of the limited to the Unlimited, the longing of the created to their Creator and the longing of the soul to its source and to its satisfaction.

Thus, to truly pray is to: 

·      Purify our heart so that God is our one desire and the object of our love

·      Raise our voices in thanksgiving and gratitude for God’s gifts

·      Ask that God makes His will for our lives apparent

·      Yearn for connection and eternal life with God

It is my prayer that we all may learn to pray in this way, with fervor, devotion, understanding, and purpose. I pray that God fills your life with success, love, joy, and peace this evening and always. Thank you.