From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
I took your advice and I’m starting to look at the upcoming readings for Sunday a few days ahead and reviewing them after. I’m stuck on the second reading for this coming Sunday. [3rd Sunday of Advent] I have to go to the Novus Ordo. I hope that’s okay. It from 1 Thess 5:16-24 and Paul says that it is the “will of God” that we “pray without ceasing”. I don’t know about you, but I can’t do that. Life is really busy and I’m not a nun. You’ve said that we are not bound to do the impossible, but this seems impossible but we are bound to do it. There must be an answer.
Firstly, it is okay that you are going to the Novus Ordo for your Sunday obligation. We don’t let the good be the enemy of the perfect, after all. These days we do what we can do.
Secondly, you might need to revise your notion of what nuns do all day. They have a lot of chores and duties apart from formal prayer.
Thirdly, perhaps the distinction between formal prayer and praying “without ceasing” can be teased out a little more.
Let’s see the reading in the RSV (rather than the NAB used at Mass).
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray constantly, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit, 20 do not despise prophesying, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good, 22 abstain from every form of evil. 23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
This reading appears only once in the three year cycle of the Novus Ordo. Too bad. However, in the Vetus Ordo it is only on Ember Saturday of Lent, an important day, to be sure, but not a Sunday. I wonder if the fact that this is such a well-known reading that it was not considered necessary to have it often in the Lectionary for Mass.
This is at the end of Paul’s letter. He is giving dense bullet points for the sake of the perfection and holiness of the listeners (in ancient times, letters were read aloud). Paul isn’t speaking in half-terms or partial aspirations. Notice the first three points are all marked with “always”. The words are “always… constantly… all circumstances…”. That’s pretty much every waking moment.
He doesn’t say, “When you get around to it, pray a little. If there’s nothing better to do, be grateful. Life’s hard but once in a while you might try to be happy.”
Later in the reading Paul refers to being sound and blameless in “spirit and soul and body”, which is a way of describing the whole person, and that which we do via those three elements of Paul’s understanding of how man is made up (anthropology).
Hence, in obedience to God we also depend on God to do the heavy lifting: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly” and “He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”
Sometimes when writing about the will of God and our vocations I’ll add that we accomplish good things that He gives us to do through grace and elbow grease. He gives the work and He makes our hands strong for that work in such a way that the work done is both ours and His, with His merits giving that work its goodness.
To the point that God doesn’t require what is impossible and yet Paul seems to be saying that God is asking for the impossible. After all, parents with children are busy and distracted away from formally praying by their parental duties. This goes for anyone with a job to be done, or even those who are afflicted or ill or suffering in some way. Even those are recreating are distracted from “praying constantly”.
It seems to me that we untie the knot along the lines of what St. Augustine says (ep. 130) about this command (not suggestion) from Paul. First, we have to have at least a disciplined and consistent prayer life that reasonably accounts for the duties of our state in life. That’s a given. However, over time we also strive to orient our whole person (in Paul’s terms spirit, soul, body) toward God such that even in the midst of other activities we are still making all we do an offering to Him in gratitude (“give thanks in all circumstances”). It is good for us to be busy in fulfilling the duties of our vocations. So there must be a way also to fulfill Paul’s exhortation about unceasing prayer and thanksgiving in joy. Its the interior orientation of our minds and hearts so that their default setting, so to speak, is above all other things that joyful and grateful devotion to God’s will and goodness that informs everything else that we do, whether it is being ill, taking care of a obstreperous child, washing dishes, playing chess, studying for exams, driving to work (which might be a real challenge). Augustine underscores the need to desire to pray. We need to have a consistent prayer life and make use of certain times for more formal prayer. Yet in all that we do, we should at least in desire be lifting our hearts and minds to God. Augustine also stresses this in his commentary on the Psalms (en. ps. 35, 13-14):
For the desire of your heart is itself your prayer. And if the desire is constant, so is your prayer. The Apostle Paul had a purpose in saying: Pray without ceasing. Are we then ceaselessly to bend our knees, to lie prostrate, or to lift up our hands? Is this what is meant in saying: Pray without ceasing? Even if we admit that we pray in this fashion, I do not believe that we can do so all the time.
Yet there is another, interior kind of prayer without ceasing, namely, the desire of the heart. Whatever else you may be doing, if you but fix your desire on God’s Sabbath rest, your prayer will be ceaseless. Therefore, if you wish to pray without ceasing, do not cease to desire.
The constancy of your desire will itself be the ceaseless voice of your prayer. And that voice of your prayer will be silent only when your love ceases. For who are silent? Those of whom it is said: Because evil has abounded, the love of many will grow cold.
The chilling of love means that the heart is silent; while burning love is the outcry of the heart. If your love is without ceasing, you are crying out always; if you always cry out, you are always desiring; and if you desire, you are calling to mind your eternal rest in the Lord.
Other great writers have dealt with this as well, and along the same lines. St. Francis de Sales in Introduction to the Devout Life comments on it. St. Theresa of Calcutta prayed short prayers in the midst of her labors. Also, St. Therese of Lisieux in Story of a Soul, who experienced the challenge of infirmity, offered her discomforts to God. She said that her prayers were like “glances at heaven”. She wrote:
“For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart; it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.”
Notice in that we find the “always”, with “prayer”, “thanksgiving” and “joy”. Moreover, it is God who then works in her whole person.
I think you get the drift.
Three last things. St. Thomas Aquinas in his commentary on 1 Thessalonians says that giving alms is a way of inspiring constant prayer in others on our behalf.
The constitutive repetitions in the Rosary are a good link between “formal” prayer and our desired “default” setting.
Also, if it is true that we do not sin when we are asleep, could it be true that our sleep can be a kind of prayer time? I don’t know about that, because the will during sleep is… I don’t know what it is. However, before going to sleep I make a conscious act of entrusting my sleep time to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Priests, asking also for her protective mantle to keep me from spiritual attacks.
13 December was the darkest day – with the least length of sunlight – of the old Julian calendar. Hence, it was once the Winter Solstice.
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