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Document Details : Title: Newman on Prayer Subtitle: A 'Duty' with a View to Acquiring a 'Privilege' Author(s): BEAUMONT, Keith Journal: Louvain Studies Volume: 35 Issue: 3-4 Date: 2011 Pages: 355-366 DOI: 10.2143/LS.35.3.2157503 Abstract : This paper examines one particular theme of Newman’s teaching on prayer, namely his conception of it as what we might call a form of spiritual training. The first part of the paper situates this teaching in its theological and historical context: Newman’s conception of Christian life, profoundly influenced by the Church Fathers, as being made up of three dimensions – intellectual (believing), moral or ethical (doing, acting), and spiritual (a lived relationship with God, present within us). Right thinking about God and right acting are therefore not ends in themselves but means of 'training our hearts'. Prayer is a 'duty' willingly engaged in, designed to make us more receptive to the presence of God within us; it thus becomes, in Newman’s eyes, a form of spiritual training. It must firstly occupy a central place in Christian life, the act of preaching even being subordinate to prayer and placed at its service. It demands fixed times, places and forms, together with rigorous self-discipline. 'Worship' (or religious 'practice') is seen by Newman as a means of 'preparing' ourselves to encounter God on Judgment Day: it is intimacy here and now with Christ our Incarnate Savior. It is through preparing our hearts to receive Him, that we 'make ourselves ready' to 'receive our inheritance'. Finally, the 'privilege' to which the 'duty' of prayer gives access is none other than that of 'communion with God' here and now. Prayer is a means of enabling us to draw closer to God, to receive His presence into our hearts – or, more accurately – of enabling God to draw closer to us. |
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