SACRED STRETCHING

+

YEARNING

Reflecting on this (Saturday) morning's Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 84, I spent a lot of time with the phrases "My soul yearns and pines..." and "My heart and my flesh cry out for the living  God."

These verses fit in well with St. Benedict's teaching about prayer that our novice Br. Mark and I have been studying this past week. In this sober Roman document you might be surprised to find that Benedict often talks about prayer as being accompanied by "tears," "compunction of heart," and "fervor." It has a lot to do with intimacy. For Benedict, then, prayer is above all the place in which we realize our search for God. 

All of the great saints who've written about prayer take the same approach to prayer: it involves longing, searching, yearning for closeness to God, 

STRETCHING

Early this week I reflected on the passage in acts in which Peter is thrown into prison and the community of believers in Jerusalem began praying for him:

Peter thus was being kept in prison, but prayer by the church was fervently being made to God on his behalf (Acts 12:5).

Stretching Prayer at Pentecost 

The Greek says "The church was praying ektenos for him." 

 "Fervently" is a good translation for this adverb to describe how they prayed, but there's an interesting story behind the Greek word. It comes from the verb ekteino, "to stretch, to stretch out." This common verb is used by Jesus when he tells the man with the withered hand "Stretch out your hand" (Mt.12:13). Luke tells us that Jesus stretched out his hand to touch and heal a leper (Lk 5:13). 

When Luke uses the adverb form of ekteino (to stretch out) in the passage about the praying church, we can imagine the Christians gathered together and stretching out not just their hands but their hearts, their very souls to the Lord. They were praying with fervor, intensity, and longing. There was nothing half-hearted or distracted about this prayer. Maybe there were tears being shed. This sounds like the kind of prayer that Benedict would encourage 450 years later.

Stretching prayer in Gethsemane

I've been asking myself how often I pray "stretched out" the way Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane (where the gospel writer uses our adverb again)? How often is my prayer filled with earnest longing and yearning (Psalm 84)? How often do I leave myself totally vulnerable to the Lord in passionate prayer?

It seems to me that I was taught that "prayer is not about emotions." Well, it also seems to me that that was a sadly mistaken view of prayer. 

So, lately I've been trying to do a lot more stretching when I pray. (By the way, you can find more on this topic if you Google "stretching prayer.")