Tuesday in the First Week of Lent: Letter 4 Notes

 

Letter #4

The Propers for today can be found by clicking HERE.

Welcome back on this Tuesday in the first week of Lent.  A quick reminder that you will find several helpful resources on my blog, Inner Driving, at www.innerdriving.blogspot.com including a list of Study Guides, the Propers for the Day, my Notes, plus other info I find along the way.

Today, a lot of what I will say has been influenced by the Letter 4 study notes from The Rev. Bill King, retired Lutheran Campus Pastor at Virginia Tech.  He is still teaching The Screwtape Letters today and just started a class at Luther Memorial Lutheran Church in Blacksburg Virginia.  I found his notes online and they are excellent.  The link to them is included on Inner Driving. 

 

In Letter number 4 – Screwtape tackles what HE can only describe as “THE PAINFUL SUBJECT OF PRAYER.” 

Remember 2 things

1.      Lewis uses a particular and quite uncommon literary approach in The Screwtape Letters which presents a NEGATIVE point of view to lift up the POSITIVE.  We are shown in this book, what NOT to do and conversely then we will know WHAT to do.  Goodness is the light in the darkness of everything Screwtape and Wormwood are trying to corrupt.

 

2.      If we think at times that Screwtape sounds short or cross or even rude with his nephew – remember they are demons.  Since all Love comes from God and God loves all of us and demons certainly don’t want to do anything that God does, then we must not make the mistake of thinking that Screwtape loves his nephew Wormwood.  That would be most undemonic and so we should not read these letters as if it were so.  

It is also important for us to understand what Prayer is.  The Book of Common Prayer answers this question on page 856.

CHRISTIAN PRAYER IS RESPONSE TO GOD THE FATHER, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, IN THE POWER OF SPIRIT.

 

Prayer is communion with God.  It is a direct and real experience of God so that we must respond. 

 

The BCP lists 7 different ways of prayer.  In one prayer we may use 2 or more of these.

Prayers of adoration – lift our hearts and minds to God, so that we may enjoy being in the presence of God.  Psalm 121 is a wonderful example of a Prayer of Adoration.

We should easily recognize Prayers of PRAISE and Prayers of THANKSGIVING.  The Postcommunion prayer on page 365 in the BCP is such a prayer that you probably know by heart. 

We should all offer Prayers of PENITENCE more often remembering those things we have done and have left undone that separate us from God.  Start with the prayer of Confession we offer on Sundays.

Prayers of OBLATION are an offering of ourselves to God.

And finally Prayers of INTERCESSION and PETITION are probably the kinds of prayer we are most familiar with when we pray for our own needs and those of others. 

 

The best thing Wormwood can do is to keep his Patient from praying altogether.  Demons are always focused on keeping all our thoughts on ourselves and away from God and others.  Encourage the Patient to simply repeat the prayers of his childhood in “an effort to produce in himself a vaguely devotional mood…” 

It is always important for us to remember that Prayer is a conversation between God and us.  It involves both speaking AND listening and should include much more time listening than talking.

 

Now if his Patient continues in his prayers, Screwtape tells his nephew to focus his Patient on his own feelings.  Encourage his Patient to manufacture within himself the feeling he is trying to achieve through his prayer.  For example, if the Patient is praying for courage, let him feel brave.  If he is praying for forgiveness, let him be trying to feel forgiven.  In this way, the Patient will gauge the success or failure of his praying by how he feels.

In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus uses the Pharisees as a SELF-RIGHTEOUS example of what NOT to do. 

 

In Matthew 6:7, Jesus tells the disciples “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.”

This is a great example of “praying” to convince yourself that you are actually praying.

Jesus gives the disciples and us a very short prayer as a model for all our prayers.  One reason I think Jesus keeps it short is so there will be more time to listen.  Now you may wonder why Matthew left off the last part of The Lord’s Prayer but actually “For thine is the Kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”  Wasn’t added until much later in the early Church – long after Jesus’s ministry with the disciples.

 

Idolatry is another tactic at Wormwood’s disposal when his Patient begins to pray.  Crosses, rosaries, even the bedpost can become the god we create to “pray” to.

Ask yourself – when you pray do you listen to God.   I think the most obvious example of this in my own life is giving thanks at MEALS.  Do I pray to God or my food?

Yet the Bible gives us the sure and certain knowledge that God hears our prayers.  Psalm 34 in the Propers for today contains the promise that God hears us and delivers us.  One of the miracles of the Christian life is that God knows our needs before we ask and hears us even when we do not feel that our prayers are going any higher than the ceiling.

Prayer is also how we come to know God.  Our reading  from Isaiah assures us that as we pray we come to know God who is always right here with us.

 

Finally Screwtape tells Wormwood that if all else fails to prevent the Patient from praying, there is still the evil hope that when he discovers the completely “real, external, invisible Presence of God with him, that it may be more than he bargained for. 

There can come the moment when we pray and know that God is with us.  In the last paragraph of Letter 4, Lewis calls this “the real nakedness of the soul in prayer.

 

This week, take on a discipline of prayer.  At meals and at Church – start with silence and wait on the Lord. 

Not long – but intentional.

Listen to the words you say.

Say them to God.

End in a moment of silence listening for God.

 

Now it helps to practice and one of the best prayers we say every Sunday is the Collect for Purity.

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known,
and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our
hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may
perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sit quietly for a moment this week and offer this prayer.  Hear the words we say each Sunday.  Say them to God.

When you come to Church that prayer will take on a whole new meaning.

Now let us pray our Collect for this Tuesday in the first week of Lent

Grant to your people, Lord, grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only true God; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.