On the Law of Prayer

Feast of St Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

O ALMIGHTY God, who by thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist: Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires and inordinate love of riches, and to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Among Anglicans, the phrase lex orandi, lex credendi is almost as popular as references to Scripture, Tradition and Reason as an explanation of the Anglican faith. The Latin expression is popularly rendered in English as, “the law of prayer is the law of faith.” Put simply it means that Christian faith finds its expression first and foremost in our prayers. Many protestant denominations have confessional statements while the Roman Catholic Church has a very comprehensive Catechism which includes all teachings that are to be believed in those denominations and members must assent to. However, it is through their prayers that their faith, and adherence or not to those doctrines, is revealed.

If prayer is so central to defining Christian faith, then, this begs the question of what constitutes prayer? St Teresa of Avila once described prayer as, “nothing else… than being on terms of friendship with God.” When at the start of a Sunday service, parishioners recite the Collect for Purity, entreating God to, “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts,” it is prayer. When we say, “Thank you!” for another supplication, it is also prayer. When in the practice of lectio divina, we simply rest in God’s presence without actively communicating that is still prayer. St Teresa’s perspective helps us to understand why we pray. The Father knows our needs better than we ourselves understand them. This leads many to question why we need to pray. The simple answer is we are commanded to. In the Epistle of St James we are reminded that we are invited by God to lift our needs before Him, and that He wants to be on terms of friendship with us as St Teresa says. Brother Lawrence, a 17th century lay Carmelite brother, put it this way:

Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions. He is always near your and with you; leave Him not alone. You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you; why then must God be neglected? Do not, then, forget him but think on Him often, adore Him continually…

We develop those terms of friendship with God in the same way we would with any living person: through proximity and frequent communication.

Prayer is the primary tool of communication with God, though we also learn of God’s nature and will through Holy Scripture. Prayer itself is a multi-faceted gemstone, each face is different but all reflect the glory of God. In being familiar with all of them and their different shapes and natures, we develop depth and variety to our communications with God, preventing our conversations from becoming a repetitive monotone. In the corporate realm, our prayers are expressed through the liturgy.

In this corporate expression, however, lex orandi, lex credendi in modern times has become a somewhat nebulous concept to some, for instance the Preface to the Canadian Book of Alternative Services which states that lex orandi, lex credendi:

means that theology as the statement of the Church belief is drawn from the liturgy... The development of theology is… a reflective process in which theology may be discovered. The Church must be open to liturgical change in order to maintain sensitivity to the impact of the gospel on the world and to permit the continuous development of a living theology.

In this reasoning, any form of prayer (in this case specifically the liturgy) creates orthodox theology which ought to be acceptable, however in this case it ignores the reminder of St James that, “you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (Jas 4. 3). Similarly our faith will be in error if it is based on prayer which does not align with the will of God.

Pope Pius XII wrote in his encyclical Mediator Dei:

We refer to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who have claimed that the sacred liturgy is a kind of proving ground for the truths to be held of faith, meaning by this that the Church is obliged to declare such a doctrine sound when it is found to have produced fruits of piety and sanctity through the sacred rites of the liturgy, and to reject it otherwise.

Here Pius rejects this line of reasoning in 1947, in a statement which at that time well could have been written by Anglicans. The Preface to the 1962 Book of Common Prayer expressed the intention that, “those who use it may become more truly what they already are: the People of God, that New Creation in Christ which finds its joy in adoration of the Creator and Redeemer of all.”

Prayer creates roots for our faith. A shallow devotional life cannot survive the turbulent storms that afflict us; without strong roots an outwardly strong looking tree can be toppled by the slightest breeze. At the same time, the roots can be strong, but they will not grow into a tree of orthodox faith if the roots themselves are not orthodox.

This reality begins to illuminate the importance of the Book of Common Prayer, commonly referred to as the Prayer Book, to Anglicans. For some, the BCP may simply be a book of liturgy, but the reality is that it is a book of Scripture and prayer that can help us to develop our faith and keep our prayers in line with God’s will. The wrong petitions, those in opposition to God’s will, display a false faith, or a faith which has been led astray.

The Book of Common Prayer helps to ensure that our prayers are illuminated by the will of God. It is steeped in Scripture; the first and last lines of the Book of Common Prayer are Scripture. It is a guidebook to a life of prayer and learning about the nature of the God who wants to hold a personal friendship with us.

The Book of Common Prayer contains not simply Scripture, but prayers, the catholic Creeds, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and is viewed as being one of the traditional formularies of Anglicanism. It is a tool that does not simply aid in our prayer, but does so in a way that ensures that the rule of prayer by which we develop our faith is one rooted in orthodoxy.