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The Need and the
Blessing of PRAYER
by Karl Rahner SJ
Liturgical Press, 1997, $12.95
Review summary by Dan Brent
This is a 1997 translation of a book which, Rahner says, was a series of
reflections from Lenten sermons he gave in 1946 in Munich. A reader willing to
get past the annoyance of its Teutonic style and the all-male pronouns will find
here a classic on prayer by a theological giant. In its Introduction, Harvey
Egan SJ quotes Rahner’s definition of a saint. “Where selfless love occurs in
daily life, where people do the simplest tasks of their daily life without an
egotistical turning in on themselves, this is what sainthood means.” (p.xvi) So,
he says, “Rahner’s theology of the prayer of everyday life challenges everyone
to look more closely at what is actually going on in the depths of their daily
life.” (p.xvii)
The book is about how to do that.
“When man is with God in awe and love, then he is praying.” (p.1) Rahner asks
his audience – survivors of the constant bombing of Munich during the war – to
recall their nights in the bomb shelter “when one only waited hopelessly for the
end, death.” (p.3) That is his metaphor for the “rubbled-over dungeon of our
heart in which the real human being is held captive, the human being who knows
that everything is finite, pathetic, unimportant, doomed to death.” (p.5) So
what can man do if he’s supposed to get out of the dungeon?” (p.7) The answer
is: pray. “Notice that he (God) is there. Be silent before him and let him
speak.” (p.9)
God has positioned us to be people of prayer. We can pray to our infinite God,
Rahner says, because we have something in common with him. That is his son, our
human brother Jesus. And the Spirit of Jesus, left to us as our legacy. God
“hears the unspeakable groaning of his own Spirit who intercedes with God for
his holy ones. He hears it (the Spirit’s prayer) as our groaning.” (p.23)
Our prayer, Rahner says, needs to be driven by love. “The commandment of love is
the fullness not only of the law but also of prayer.” (p.27) This is love that
“clings to the beloved, wants him to be well, and is blessed in his happiness.
And, strangely, whoever loves this way has escaped from the dungeon of his
narrowness.” (p.29)
Rahner encourages his readers to “pray in the everyday” meaning routine daily
prayer which becomes a cherished custom. “Try to make a personal prayer out of
everyday prayer (leading) from you to God, and not just to the prayer formula.”
(p.43) “One can learn to make a prayer out of reading sacred Scripture.” Also,
“learn to hallow through prayer dead moments in which one can do nothing.”
(p.43)
And he encourages also, “Pray the everyday” by which he means we should make our
routine goodness an ongoing prayer. “Let ourselves be educated through the
everyday to kindness, to patience, to peace and understanding, to forgiveness,
to selfless loyalty. Then the everyday is prayer.” (p.47)
Rahner finishes the book with four specific types of prayer, beginning with the
prayer of need. Prayer seems so futile! “We prayed, and God did not answer. We
have every reason to despair because of his silence.” (p.49) Rahner asks his
readers to consider, “Does God have to prove that he is good and holy? Or
rather, don’t you have to prove that you love without reward and without life
insurance?” (p.54) God, remember, let his eternal Word become flesh to weep
together with this lamenting choir: Lord, let your kingdom come, the kingdom in
which all dreams are ended and you hear the weeping of the poor.” (p.55)
His chapter on the prayer of consecration reflects that it is possible to sum up
one’s whole future in a present moment’s commitment to God and his love.
In his chapter on the prayer of guilt, the author elaborates the point that each
of us is, in the end, a sinner. We are prone to rationalize our sinful acts, to
excuse our selfishness, to dismiss our misbehavior as “venial”. We mean well, we
reason, and nobody is perfect. We sin because we “don’t sense anything of the
consuming holiness of God” (p.76) against whom we sin. But God’s grace “is
received as the pardoning kiss of God’s forgiveness.” (p.79) So “the actual
prayer that we have to say to God about us is never ‘I am in your grace’ but
always, ‘have mercy on me a sinner.’” (p.90)
Finally, Rahner’s chapter on prayers of decision identifies three categories.
Prayer in time of temptation is one. Then “man should speak with God not about
temptation but about God.” (p.95) Prayer about “decision of contemporary time”
calls us to “pray for the kingdom of God and for a new pardon for the history of
our nation” –Germany in 1946! (p.99) The “decision of death” prayer is the last.
“To think now of one’s death is a good prayer.” (p.100)
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