Pray Your Own Prayers

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent – February 24, 2015

WHEN A BROTHER asked Abba Antony to pray for him, the old man replied, “Try to pray your own prayers.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 22.]

The perennial wisdom in prayer is to pray as you can, don’t pray as you can’t.

In other words, there is no need to lean always on the prayers of others. And there is no need mimic the words others use in prayer.

No one can pray your prayers. No one can be attentive to God for you. No one else can hear God stir your heart. No one can tell God what it feels like to be you. No one else can offer your family and friends to God just the way you can.

Antony responded to this brother – harshly, it may seem to us – as he did because he wanted the brother to grow up. He was concerned for his brother’s becoming in God. He wanted his brother to learn the value and goodness of his own prayer.

I’m not suggesting that we should never pray for others who ask for our prayer. And I’m not saying that we should brush them off abruptly.

But ultimately, love is concerned for the wholeness and growth of that other person.

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