Screwtape Letters: Prayer \"The Best

¶ … Screwtape Letters: Prayer

"The best thing, where it is possible, is to keep the patient from the serious intention of praying altogether. When the patient is an adult recently re-converted to the Enemy's party, like your man, this is best done by encouraging him to remember, or to think he remembers, the parrot-like nature of his prayers in childhood. In reaction against that, he may be persuaded to aim at something entirely spontaneous, inward, informal, and unregularised; and what this will actually mean to a beginner will be an effort to produce in himself a vaguely devotional mood in which real concentration of will and intelligence have no part. One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray "with moving lips and bended knees" but merely "composed his spirit to love" and indulged "a sense of supplication." That is exactly the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence as practised by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy's service, clever and lazy patients can be taken in by it for quite a long time. At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out." (C.S. Lewis, the Screwtape Letters, IV).

Dear Mr. Screwtape:

Imagine my surprise when I was rifling through my attic and found a box of letters that I had never encountered before! I imagined that they had belonged to the previous tenant. Then I found that they were addressed to a more recent visitor, an uninvited guest who has apparently been lurking in the corner. If only I had known, I would have offered young Mr. Wormwood a cup of tea, if your 'sort' does like a nice cup of tea!

The first letter to Mr. Wormwood I perused of yours was on the subject of prayer. As interesting as I found your letter to be, I must hasten to add that I feel that you misunderstand what God demands of humanity, in regard to prayer. Before Jesus came to save humanity on earth, according to the Apostle Paul, humans were bound by Mosaic Law, which is indeed a highly formalized and ritualized code of how to behave. Mosaic Law contains specific prescriptions for prayer and behavior. But now that Jesus has died for our sins: "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Galatians 5:14). No longer is love and obedience to God reckoned solely in terms of saying the right words or following the Bible like a rulebook. Instead, holiness is attained through right-mindedness and a right heart. You say that the body affects the mind -- and indeed it does. But no longer is an obsession with bodily attributes, such as food, drink, and adherence to the laws of Leviticus (including circumcision) that connects us to God.

"Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, 'Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.'" (Mark 7:14-15). I do indeed agree that religiosity cannot be found in rote prayers, learned in childhood, or be encompassed by a vague sense of spirituality that does not take into consideration Christ's sacrifice. On the subject of prayer, I can only say that I pray daily -- both in the conventional manner in which you seem to think is 'correct,' with a posture of supplication and the words of scripture -- but also when I am engaged in daily activities.

I agree that a humble position is best for prayer. But it is not the humility of my posture that proves my holiness, rather it is that I am all too aware of my imperfection, my sinfulness, and my need for God's sanctification that I fall upon my knees. The impulse to pray comes from within, not because I am told to do so. My moving lips and bended knees are the result of my supplication, but even in moments when I am not able to take such a reverent, devotional posture, I still consecrate my life to the divine. What occurs during prayer cannot be manufactured or willed; rather it comes from openness to God, and a surrender of a human intellect that is too feeble to understand the higher truths of creation.