Prayer Efficacy

But if he still does not reform or perhaps (which God forbid) even rises up in pride and wants to defend his conduct, then let the abbot do what a wise physician would do. Having used applications, the ointments of exhortation, the medicines of the Holy Scriptures, finally the cautery of excommunication and of the strokes of the rod, if he sees that his efforts are of no avail, let him apply a still greater remedy, his own prayers and those of all the brethren, that the Lord, who can do all things, may restore health to the sick brother. (Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 28)

This passage from the Rule is part of the disciplinary section of the Saint’s Rule, which describes various procedures for faults, and how brothers who have sinned can be healed (note the medical imagery in the text), forgiven and restored to the community. But I don’t want to reflect on the aspect of discipline so much as I do on the aspect of the remedy of prayer.

Let us first, despite our own reactions to these procedures (excommunication, corporeal punishment, prostrations, and so forth), acknowledge that these were deemed, in the Saint’s context, the wisest and most effective methods by which to accomplish the intended end: the healing of a soul. But, staying within the medical imagery, when dealing with (spiritual) illness, there is no guarantee that a particular method or regimen of methods will accomplish the healing desired. And even having exhausted all efforts, it still may be that the patient will not be healed and may even die.

But note here the move: having tried all the best of human wisdom and effort, there is a yet greater remedy to which we may turn. Of course, we should not suppose that prayer is a last resort, for clearly, one cannot read the Rule and suppose that prayer is only taken up once all human efforts have failed. No, prayer suffuses every aspect of the life of the community the Rule is meant to instantiate and govern. And so it isn’t as though all these human efforts were done apart from prayer.

Rather, it seems to me, that the saint is saying there comes a point at which human effort must, after a manner, cease, and at which all human effort must be gathered into the energies of prayer. Of course, one still remains loving and hospitable, charitable and kind, and so forth. It is not as though we become quietistic. But we turn our attention from seeking the accomplishments associated with our actions, to simple and single trust in God to whom we pray.

In a word, we step aside into the background and invoke God completely into our midst, attentive to his work and the realization of his love. We call on the saints for their prayers. And we wait in silent patience for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven,” with the Kyrie and the Ave Maria on our lips and in our hearts, bounded by the mystery of freedom and grace which he has ordained.

In this silent center where God the Holy Trinity is present and at work, one may, if one is attentive, find great joy and peace. There, where one stands on the outer periphery of this particular grace, one may, if one is willing, find one’s own healing and salvation. All of this is mercy. All of this is love. All of this is the grace which is “everywhere present and fillest all things.” All of this is the Holy Trinity, who “ever workest great and mysterious deeds for us, glorious, numberless and wonderful.”

Doxa.