Coffee with Jesus
Thinking Faith has an article by Richard Leonard SJ on his book Why Bother Praying. I had an earlier post about Fr. Leonard's other book, Where the Hell is God?, with a link to a video talk by him.
The post at Thinking Faith was interesting because I've been thinking a lot about my own weird prayer life. My latest kind of prayer is what Ignatius called a colloquy, an imagined conversation between you and Jesus, and I imagine him and me sitting across a table from each other in a coffee shop, sipping hot cups of joe that never need to be refilled. Who knew this was such a common theme that it's a joke? ;) .....
But anyway, the article at Thinking Faith is interesting. I've been considering buying his book but I've hesitated because at the end of the day, his definition of prayer is less than I had hoped for ...
In Where the Hell is God?, I came up with a short definition of intercessory prayer: ‘prayer asks an unchanging God to change us to change the world.’ Some correspondents told me, ‘this does not end up saying very much at all.’ This surprised me. In any and every important way, I do not change easily or quickly, so asking God to change me is not an insubstantial matter; it is grace building on nature. This is especially true if I want to stay changed.
If prayer only changes us and not God too, I don't think I'll find it enough.
The post at Thinking Faith was interesting because I've been thinking a lot about my own weird prayer life. My latest kind of prayer is what Ignatius called a colloquy, an imagined conversation between you and Jesus, and I imagine him and me sitting across a table from each other in a coffee shop, sipping hot cups of joe that never need to be refilled. Who knew this was such a common theme that it's a joke? ;) .....
Coffee with Jesus from Church Fuel on Vimeo.
But anyway, the article at Thinking Faith is interesting. I've been considering buying his book but I've hesitated because at the end of the day, his definition of prayer is less than I had hoped for ...
In Where the Hell is God?, I came up with a short definition of intercessory prayer: ‘prayer asks an unchanging God to change us to change the world.’ Some correspondents told me, ‘this does not end up saying very much at all.’ This surprised me. In any and every important way, I do not change easily or quickly, so asking God to change me is not an insubstantial matter; it is grace building on nature. This is especially true if I want to stay changed.
If prayer only changes us and not God too, I don't think I'll find it enough.
posted by crystal | 1:47 PM
2 Comments:
I love the image. I think my early morning coffee is the most prayerful time of day.
Hi Richard,
Yeah, I keep trying to find a way to make my imaginative prayer conversation seem more real, usually by coming up with a new setting, and it seems to work for a while. But when the novelty wears off, it gets hard to make it "work" again.
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