Abbot Isaac on pleading with utter confidence
Abbot Isaac says:
Since it contains an invocation of God against every danger, it contains humble and pious confession, it contains the watchfulness of anxiety and continual fear, it contains the thought of one’s own weakness, confidence in the answer, and the assurance of a present and ever ready help. For one who is constantly calling on his protector, is certain that He is always at hand.
I have heard people ask, “But isn’t the Adjutorium too groveling? Asking for his help twenty four hours a day seems so unsure of his response.” But nothing could be further from the truth. It is a prayer of utter confidence in God’s love and care.
When examining this prayer, we must not look only at the very words, but at the whole of the meaning they carry and symbolize for the faithful pray-er. The words themselves, though important since words express meaning, are not the focus; the meaning the words express is the point. The meaning we put into this prayer, the meaning which has been put into it by countless generations of praying Christians, is what we plead before God. So it is not a continual grovel-fest, unless we make it to be that. It is rather a humble and honest constant request for God’s help and also a certain assurance that God loves us, that he cares, that he is listening, that he is truly quick to help and eager to save. The Adjutorium has no meaning unless we assume that God is more interested in helping us that we are in being helped.
It starts from a realistic assessment of our need. That honest admission may be more than we are capable of at the time. Frankly, I do not really understand the depth of my need for God. I know this to be true because, after 46 years, I realize my need for God much more than I did, say, five years ago. I can not imagine that I will not understand my need more when I have lived five more years. And even then, my understanding will not be complete. So I don’t know now how much I need God. But this beautiful verse, “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me,” contains an understanding greater than I had five years ago, greater than I have now, and undoubtedly greater than I will have at any point before I die. So, when I pray it, I am praying from the truth of my being, I am praying from my need for God, but much better than I would do consistently on my own.
It is humble because it is honest; it is pious because it is reverent. It puts me in my correct relationship with God: I am someone lowly who needs his assistance. I am a human being who may stand before him and ask for that help. It is pious because when I pray for God to save me, I am fulfilling the obligation of justice by giving him his due. He deserves to be acknowledged as the source of all ultimate help and as the one who can fulfill my deepest needs. I confess (put into words) who I am and who God is by praying this short sentence.
It is a prayer of watchfulness and continual fear. Yuck! I used to hate any talk of fear in my spiritual life. But children, let me tell you, the older I get the more I realize that the word fear is used to carry a lot of true meaning. The older I get, the more experience I have with blowing it utterly. I have seen more of my good intentions fall by the wayside than I can remember. I have failed at more noble attempts than most people have even thought to attempt in the first place. I know myself all too well. Oh, God. O God! Help. Help, please! I know I can’t do it. I know I won’t. I’ve tried before, and before that I attempted, and a whole bunch of before that even. And I fail, fail, fail, and don’t succeed. I need help. I’m scared even to look at my record. Oh, sure, I’ve succeeded at many things. But that which is becoming more and more important to me all the time–my walk with God–at that I have failed miserably. And I need assistance. Heck, sometimes I almost think hyper-Augustinianism is right and I need God just to do it for me.
So it’s OK to say “fear.” I fear my own failure, my own lack of focus and determination, my own tendency to sloth. I no longer, however, fear the word “fear.” I’m not afraid of God–not at all. But I am afraid of my sinfulness and weakness.
And above all, the Adjutorium is hopeful and confident in God. When praying it, I know that God is right here, that he wants to help, that he will help, that he loves me infinitely. I wouldn’t bother asking if I didn’t know that. And the prayer itself knows that assurance much better than I, of course. Sometimes when praying it, I can feel that confidence washing through me like water, as if the Adjutorium itself holds the deep knowledge of God’s dependability and lends me that assurance when it passes from mind to heart to lips.
So you see, the Adjutorium is more than just a collection of words with a particular meaning. It is a repository of meanings which I give to it and which others have given to it.
Ack! I didn’t think to click on your name and see if you had created a blog! I’ve been missing it for weeks! Months! All the wasted time!!!
Seriously, I’m really excited about this. I would read anything you wrote avidly, even a commentary on the phone book. Please post often. If you like, I’ll send you some of the stuff of yours I have archived for fodder.
None of my students know what “fodder” means. Sigh.
By the way, the five prayers were the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, the Magnificat, Psalm 119 and the Adjutoriuim, right? What? I spelled Adjutoriuim wrong? But you did it that way yourself. You also spelled it Adjutorium, so I guess I just got confused.
Having payed your back for your pedantery, I bid you a fond farewell.
Well written! By the way, you never told me you had another blog (on Lulu) or what you meant by my lack of devotion for the flag having something to do with a skewed incarnational theology. And while I’m at it, what are your thoughts on impanation/consubstantiation vs. transubstantiation?
Well, finally after four years or so I got around to saying something about transubstantiation. I don’t really answer the question you asked, but my answer does point toward what I think about the whole question as you did ask it.
My scores were almost exactly the same…
While I know thou art a sinner, I wouldn’t say you have “haman-ness”. He was MUCH worse than you!
I agree with your thoughts regarding transubstantiation. Another question. If we cannot, and perhaps should not, explain the mystery; should it prevent co-celebration of the Eucharist?
[grumble grumble] Your first comment on the new blog and already you found a typo. Well, I guess I should be grateful. [gritting teeth] [squinting] [sucking in air] There! I’m grateful. Thank you for noticing that.
Good question about co-celebrating the Eucharist. I think maybe a new post on the subject would be called for. When I have time, I’ll write something up, maybe call it “Eucharist Theories, part 2.” To answer it one must be able to juggle/balance(?) theory and practical reality.
As for Haman being worse than I, I’m not sure. His sin was certainly more spectacular than anything I’ve managed to come up with so far, but I can be pretty bad in my own petty way when I try. And I doubt he spent his nights dreaming up ways to be wicked for the sake of wickedness; I am sure his actions seemed reasonable to him, even good by his standards. Most of my sinfulness does not have even that justification. Frankly, he had the power to sin big; I don’t.
Please pray for me. After all, I’m the one Jesus had to die for.
When I did my Holy Saturday concert thingie, I looked up a lot of the Orthodox traditions for the Harrowing of Hell. One that I particularly liked was that they put a coffin in the middle of the isle. So, I took the Alleluia coffin (that we use at the beginning of Lent) and used that instead. I don’t know if the people got the point, but I quite liked it.
What did they do with the Alleluia coffin? Did they bury it in the ground? Just hide it away? I have never been in a church that did this, but I think the burying of Alleluia is a delightful thing. I would like to bury it in the ground, or have an old-fashioned Old English sepulchre in the church, but that has never been practical at any of my congregations.
They hid it away and I pulled it out for Holy Saturday. Then, on Easter Sunday, they opened it and released the Alleluias. Pretty cool, for Lutherans.
I think you’re on the right track noting this limitation. At the very least, prayer is a dialogue with God in which God is leading. However, these days I think more of prayer as communion with God; us being in each others’ presence.
Here’s my problem. When I pray “regularly”, like at night or in the morning, I find myself forced to come up with words. It’s not “from the heart” at all. I think those times would be ideal times to use this. But those “from the heart” prayers, even then, I think I would classify as “in the moment” prayers.
Which is all to say, I find I rarely do things “from the heart.” That is a sad realization.
This is something I have been planning to write about later. I think the situation is different for different people. Some folk can open their hearts up to God and a torrent of real, appropriate, honest words just floods forth. Others of us can’t do it. I believe the Adjutorium is appropriate for all Christians; but for those of us with this problem, it takes on an added benefit. I know that I get tired of being told, “Just pray to God like you would to a good friend.” Sometimes it works, sometimes not. The truth is, I wouldn’t let any of my good friends spend as much time with me as God does, or demand communication from me as often as I am supposed to pray to God. Heck, I’m a hermit, and there’s a reason for that. Perhaps this means that I really do pray to God as I talk to my friends: rarely and then very deeply. I am sure, too, that my situation and yours must be incomprehensible to those lucky souls who can “just talk to God” all day long and into the night. I have no idea what’s up with them, and they don’t understand me, either.
I’d best quit now so I still have something to write about later. Next post (maybe) will be: The Adjutorium as prayer of deep trust.
Perhaps it means that, instead of eradicating terrorists, we are to sain them? And to be willing, even eager, to experience martyrdom at their hands?
Well, now you’ve gone and terrified me. There is probably something to what you almost say, since I know that everything Jesus calls me to is something I don’t really want to do to begin with. Jesus and St. Paul certainly do not think that preserving this earthly life is the top priority (see, e.g., last Sunday’s epistle, 2 Cor. 5:6-10 and all accounts of the Crucifixion). And certainly vengeance, my first impulse, is not even on the list of possible Christian values. Honestly, I’d rather not think about it.
Sooooo …. what would be a good, one sentence definition of prayer?
Good question. Our definition must include
All these and more. So how to summarize all that? How about this:
That’s wonderful!
Great God, make speed to save me.
Loving Lord, make haste to help me.
I asked because I had kind of taken Kierkegaard’s position, “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” Also, some of what you mention, I would think, could be included in saintly intercessions.
Wouldn’t you also need to include, say, sweeping? And liturgy?
Maybe prayer is that communication which brings us closer to God?
Please do not include the words “liturgy” and “sweeping” in the same sentence or paragraph. Almost always they are put together as “sweeping reform of the liturgy”, which absolutely gives me hives.
Sweeping the floor could indeed be included as prayer. It depends on the interior disposition of the sweeper. And public worship, too, with the same stipulation. The examples I mentioned are all things that people pretty much do only when they are intending to pray per se, whereas sweeping and public worship (see how elegantly I avoid doing what I just told you not to do?) are often done without deliberate intention to pray.
Kierkegaard’s statement reminds of this by Dag Hammarskjöld:
The problem with Kierkegaard and Hammarskjöld is that they represent a decidedly adult understanding of prayer. I mean an understanding which children are mostly not capable of, into which one must grow and mature. It is, I believe, superior to the more childish view, but that child’s view–prayer is asking for stuff–is valid and respectable. Jesus is recorded as having prayed that way, and he taught us to. It is respectable to believe that prayer changes God, though better to look forward to its changing me.
The “prayer changes me” attitude is more mature and sophisticated because (I believe) everybody capable of it is capable of the other, while not all those capable of understanding prayer as asking for stuff and trying to get God to change his mind are able to understanding the other way.
I wrote Terry Pratchett, recently, and told him that, although he’s probably an athiest, he gave me one of the best pictures of what Jesus did for us I’ve ever seen. In “Feet of Clay,” a golem named Dorfl is purchased by the good-hearted Captain Carrot. Carrot tells Dorfl he is free, but Dorfl can’t understand this. So, Carrot opens his head (where the chem goes) and puts the receipt of purchase in.
He gives Dorfl to himself.
Dorfl then chooses to A) earn money to help other golems purchase themselves and B) work at the Watch with Carrot.
If that ain’t Christianity, I don’t know what is.
I just listened to the Orson Wells adaptation of “The Man Who Was Thursday.” I hadn’t thought of it before, but turn of the century anarchists were what Muslim extremists are today. It makes me sad, because it seems that the only people willing to die for what they believe in are almost always willing to kill for the same cause.
Where are the Christians willing to die, but not to kill? (Not sure I’m one of them. It sounds really nice when I say it, but the reality would probably be too much for me.)
I suppose the answer would include the relational. See, one of my problems is that I don’t really pray. Not right and not regularly. The selfish, childish person bringing their Christmas list to God has an infinitely richer prayer life than mine.
So, maybe, because prayer changes us; prayer is anything that maintains that contact with God that we might be changed?
Amen.
And if you were to pray the Adjutorium regularly, the quality of your prayer life would increase automatically.
So take a deep breath, right now:
“O God, come to my assistance;
O Lord, make haste to help me.”
And then pray it one more time. And once more. Now you are done for the moment. There. You have just prayed in a high quality way. That wasn’t hard.
I think our prayer lives are similar. And that is why the Adjutorium is so appealing to me.
If this is supposed to be for everybody, which is true, then it is sad that only monks do the Psalms part and mostly only certain Protestants,and not all, do the Bible part.
This is so creepy. First, one of the main ways (before celtic lists) that I would test out ideas was to imagine myself being interviewed by someone famous, like the Poprah. I would hone my answers until it was something with which I could live and have others know what I thought.
Second, I had this SAME realization, but with Hugh Hefner instead of a demon. He’s at least honest while most Christians (by which I mean myself) hide our sins big and small. He at least throws his finger in the face of God while I pledge sonship but live as a rank stranger.
Doesn’t this make exorcism an act of deep hypocricy(not to mention bad spelling LOL) than if the demons are more honest about their standing with God than we are?
Hello, Harold. I’m glad you found my blog.
Frankly, I don’t even want to think about your question. I’m afraid it boggles my poor brain.
Harold (the helicoptor?),
We do it out of obedience and love. Just because someone honestly says, “I’m going to kill your child,” doesn’t mean we have to respond, “Well, since you were honest and I’m a liar, go ahead.” Plus, at least we’re TRYING (sometimes) to be obedient. We WANT (more or less) to be. We’re just epic failures.
Knowing Harold, I know that there was a mischievous grin on his face as he typed that.
Actually I wasn’t (this time), believe it or not. The irony of the situation just struck a really profound cord in me, although I will admit I enjoy unexpected twists, paradoxes and such. One of the most deepest spiritual paradoxes I struggle with is we are truely sacred beings (if for no other reason the breath of the devine spirit bestowed upon us makes us so) and yet as humans we can engage in the most horrific acts of evil against each other. Reminds me of the Nuremburg (sp) hearings post WW II where the German High Command pointed out the allies were comitting alot of the same acts which they were standing trial for. Definitely not defending the nazi high command, mind you, but it definitely tainted the purity of the allied cause.
Keeping in mind that this is a thought experiment, since I do not (as far as I can tell) know any actual demons.
The demon has made a deliberate decision at some level to reject the Lordship of God. He does not value God at all, sees no reason to be subject to him, and therefore does not care — is not ashamed — that he refuses to place himself under Him. In fact, he is proud of that rejection.
On the other hand, I at my best have chosen be subject to my Lord and, at worst, have at least not chosen to reject him. So when I do not live up to that, when I live as if he were not my Lord, I feel ashamed. Therefore I lie about it to myself and maybe to others to protect my fragile ego. That is a fault, but it comes from something good — at some level I want to do the right thing, but I don’t do it.
So in the end, I come out better than the demon.