Preview: Newman on "Times of Private Prayer"

We know from his works that Saint John Henry Newman, as an Anglican and as a Catholic, was a man of prayer, both liturgical (public) and private. As the French Oratorian, Father Louis Bouyer points out in his introduction to Ignatius Press's volume of Newman's Prayers, Verses, and Devotions, Newman's prayer life may be exemplified by his admiration and translation of Lancelot Andrewes' Preces Privatae from the Greek, which was published as one of the Tracts for the Times. 

Bouyer calls them "spiritual exercises of penance, confession of faith, praise, thanksgiving, and intercession, leading to a fully conscious participation in the eucharistic mysteries and, ultimately, to a whole life in God's presence in Christ." (p. xvii). Newman continued to use these Devotions of the seventeenth century Anglican Bishop throughout his life as a Catholic priest "for his daily preparation and thanksgiving before and after Mass for his most personal meditations." (same page) As Bouyer comments, Newman's prayer was the practice of lectio divina, meditation on Divine Revelation in Scripture and Tradition.

So it's no surprise that he would preach on the need for prayer and devotion in the Christian life, and indeed urge his congregations not only to pray always but to set aside specific times to prayer, as he does in "Times of Private Prayer", which is the meditation for the Saturday of the third week of Lent selected in The Tears of Christ: Meditations for Lent. According to the Newman Reader's chronology of sermons, however, this was an Advent sermon, delivered early in Newman's tenure as a minister in the Church of England in 1829, and preceded by a sermon on "Mental Prayer" and followed by a sermon on "Forms of Mental Prayer".

Nevertheless, on Monday, March 21, we'll continue our discussion of Newman's Lenten sermons/meditations on the Son Rise Morning Show with this sermon. We'll be on the air at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern time. Please listen live on EWTN Radio or on your local EWTN affiliate. 

What makes it appropriate for a Lenten meditation is the verse Newman uses to introduce the sermon: 

"Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Matt 6:6

which is included in the Gospel for Ash Wednesday when Jesus instructed His disciples on the proper ways to practice fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.

As Newman describes the context of this verse:

The Pharisees were in the practice, when they prayed by themselves, of praying in public, in the corners of the streets. Public private prayer, this was their self-contradictory practice. Warning, then, His disciples against the particular form of hypocrisy in which the self-conceit of human nature at that day showed itself, our Lord promises in the text His Father's blessing on such humble supplications as were really addressed to Him, and not made to gain the praise of men: "when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matt. 6:6). Those who seek the unseen God (He seems to say), seek Him in their hearts and hidden thoughts, not in loud words, as if He were far off from them. Such men would retire from the world into places where no human eye saw them, there to meet Him humbly and in faith, who is "about their path, and about their bed, and spieth out all their ways." And He, the Searcher of hearts, would reward them openly. Prayers uttered in secret, according to God's will, are treasured up in God's Book of Life. They seem, perhaps, to have sought an answer here, and to have failed. Their memory perishes even in the mind of the petitioner, and the world never knew of them. But God is ever mindful, and in the last day, when the books are opened, they shall be disclosed and rewarded before the whole world.

Newman acknowledges that a Christian should always be praying, raising our minds to think of God; but he asks, should we really set times for ourselves, privately, to pray? Doesn't the public worship of God at set times and places suffice for such structured, on-purpose prayer? 

Then he cites passages of scripture that prove that Jesus prayed at certain times, going off by Himself and that other Biblical heroes did the same:

The practice of good men in Scripture gives us an example in confirmation of it. Even our Saviour had His peculiar seasons of communing with God. His thoughts indeed were one continued sacred service offered up to His Father; nevertheless, we read of His going up "into a mountain apart to pray," and again, of His "continuing all night in prayer to God." (Matt. 14:23; Luke 6:12) St. Peter too, as in the narrative of the conversion of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, in the tenth chapter of the Acts, went up upon the house-top to pray about the sixth hour; then God visited him. . . . . The Psalmist says, "Seven times a day do I praise Thee, because of Thy righteous judgments." (Ps. 119:164) [The inspiration for the Liturgy of the Hours] And Daniel's practice is told us on a memorable occasion: "Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed (the impious decree, forbidding prayer to any but king Darius for thirty days), he went into his house, and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he got down upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously." (Dan. 6:10)

So having established "proof texts" from the Holy Bible to convince those who might think such structured prayer unnecessary, he points out, in passages not included in The Tears of Christ, that neglect of structured private prayer may lead to neglect of Sunday worship and indeed, of the constant raising of our minds and hearts to God throughout the day: Newman always shows that great insight into human habits and psychology. When we say, oh, I can pray anywhere, anytime, he suggests, we'll soon pray nowhere, and at no time. We need to establish habits so we may practice virtue and make it part of our lives. Newman particularly urges his congregation to establish habits of morning and evening prayer:

Be sure, whoever of you is persuaded to disuse his morning and evening prayers, is giving up the armor which is to secure him against the wiles of the Devil.

And he warns them of the distractions that could interfere with this habit:

Beware then of the subtlety of your Enemy, who would willingly rob you of your defence. Do not yield to his bad reasonings. Be on your guard especially, when you get into novel situations or circumstances which interest and delight you, lest they throw you out of your regularity in prayer. Anything new or unexpected is dangerous to you. Going much into mixed society, and seeing many strange persons, taking share in any pleasant amusements, reading interesting books, entering into a new line of life, forming some new acquaintance, the sudden prospect of any worldly advantage, travelling: all these things and such like, innocent as they are in themselves, and capable of a religious use, become means of temptation if we are not on our guard. See that you are not unsettled by them; this is the danger.

We all know the temptation to skip Sunday Mass when on vacation; the scheduling of tours and events may interfere with the times and devotions we've prayed at home.

And he concludes with assurances that these secret prayers, regularly practiced, will have a public effect; although the worldly world won't see, our family and friends will see something different. Our regular prayers and devotions will have an influence:

Do not indulge visions of earthly good, fix your hearts on higher things, let your morning and evening thoughts be points of rest for your mind's eye, and let those thoughts be upon the narrow way, and the blessedness of heaven, and the glory and power of Christ your Saviour. Thus will you be kept from unseemly risings and fallings, and steadied in an equable way. Men in general will know nothing of this. They witness not your private prayers, and they will confuse you with the multitude they fall in with. But your friends and acquaintance will gain a light and a comfort from your example. They will see your good works and be led to trace them to their true secret source, the influences of the Holy Spirit sought and obtained by prayer. Thus they will glorify your heavenly Father, and in imitation of you will seek Him, and He who sees in secret shall at length reward you openly.

That conclusion reminds me of one of Newman's Meditations, composed for the boys of the Oratory School (when Newman was a Catholic priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri) which demonstrates the continuity of prayer and devotion in his life:

Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as Thou shinest: so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from Thee. None of it will be mine. No merit to me. It will be Thou who shinest through me upon others. O let me thus praise Thee, in the way which Thou dost love best, by shining on all those around me. Give light to them as well as to me; light them with me, through me. Teach me to show forth Thy praise, Thy truth, Thy will. Make me preach Thee without preaching—not by words, but by my example and by the catching force, the sympathetic influence, of what I do—by my visible resemblance to Thy saints, and the evident fulness of the love which my heart bears to Thee.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!