Week 11 Thursday (Year 1)

Readings: 2 Corinthians 11:1-11; Psalm 111; Matthew 6:7-15

Preaching and theology can become babbling just as prayer can, even more so. What saves any of them from that fate? Heaping up words is a temptation in many situations, thinking that more words means more sense, which of course does not automatically follow. Sometimes it is better to be silent, whether in prayer, in preaching or in theology. As in music or poetry the silences between are as important as the words or notes that are sounded.

Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians feels impelled to break his silence, even if - it seems to be one of their criticisms of him - he is not impressive as an orator. (He is as a writer: even the Corinthians acknowledge this, but they find his physical presence disappointing.) But the truth demands that he speak and so does his passion for them. He is jealous for them with the jealousy of God, he says. He is in love with them, in other words, and so cannot stay silent if he sees them wandering into ways that are false and that lead them away from their true good.

The babbling we might do in prayer is the least dangerous of all babblings, because prayer is more about the desire - the passion, the being in love, the jealousy - than it is about any words we might manage to put together in trying to articulate our desires. The liturgical prayers of the Church help us. They are works of restrained passion, we can say, of disciplined jealousy, expressions tried and tested across the centuries that achieve some right balance of thought and feeling, of words and desires.

The Our Father is the pattern for all prayers, whether liturgical or personal. It is short, concise, focused, profound. These 'words of the Word of God' are really too few to be babbled, though we may be distracted even in praying so short and venerable a prayer as it is. The important thing is the desire, love, passion, jealousy which turns us towards this prayer. When other words fail or become empty, and we tire of preaching and theology, these words remain.

They are words to which we will always return. How often one hears of old people, or persecuted Christians, who fall back on these words when all else is being taken away from them. They are words we are entitled to use - perhaps we can forget this: that we have a right to say these words. Having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, we can call God our Father. Having been baptised into Christ, we can speak with the Heavenly Father with confidence and freedom, as sons and daughters.