The case for written prayers

C.S. Lewis, the beloved Christian apologist and writer, passed away 46 years ago today in Oxford, England. Today, then, is a fitting day to explore Lewis' views on the all-important topic of prayer, specifically the topic of using pre-written prayers.

For some Christians, written or “ready-made” prayers are suspect because they allegedly are indicative of lifeless formalism, empty ritual without real or personal substance. For others, written prayers are a great aid in knowing what to say to God when one, naturally, doesn’t quite know what to say. In his masterpiece, Letters to Malcolm, C.S. Lewis discussed the benefits of written prayers in his own prayer life. 

Written prayers in public or in private worship are never expressly endorsed or condemned in Scripture, so what side of the fence a Christian comes down on with this issue is a matter of preference, not of dogma.

There is a great case to be made for the usefulness of written prayers, and we will explore a handful of them, as well as look at a few of the drawbacks.

1. Extemporaneous Prayers Are Sometimes Difficult

It’s unrealistic to expect a recent convert to always know exactly how to pray whenever there is a need. At many times, we are simply “at a loss for words.” As St. Paul says in Romans 8, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Why? Because we do not how to pray as we ought to.

Praying without words was, Lewis believed, the “highest” form of prayer, but couldn’t be done on a daily basis, as it required a higher level of spiritual fortitude than most of us can maintain from day to day. Hence, words are necessary. But, Lewis said, it’s not of primary importance who originally composed the words—you or someone else.

“If they are our own words they will soon, by unavoidable repetition, harden into a formula. If they are someone else’s, we shall continually pour into them our own meaning.”

Lewis elaborated on some of the “festoons”, or personal meanings, he gave to the lines of the Lord’s Prayer, demonstrating how it’s possible to use a ready-made form and pour one’s own meaning into the words at the same time.

• “Thy kingdom come. That is, may your reign be realized here, as it is realized there. I tend to take there on three levels. First, as in the sinless world beyond the horrors of animal and human life; in the behaviour of stars and trees and water, in sunrise and wind. May there be here (in my heart) the beginning of a like beauty. Secondly, as in the best human lives I have known: in all the people who really bear the burdens and ring true, and in the quiet, busy, ordered life of good families and really good religious houses. May that too be ‘here.’ Finally, of course, in the usual sense: as in Heaven, as among the blessed dead.”
• “Thy will be done. At first I took it exclusively as an act of submission, attempting to do with it what Our Lord did in Gethsemane…This interpretation is, I expect, the commonest. And so it must be. And such are the miseries of human life that it must often fill our whole mind. But at other times other meanings can be added….This is where the liberty of festooning comes in…A great deal of {God’s will} is to be done by God’s creatures; including me. The petition, then, is not merely that I may patiently suffer God’s will, but also that I may vigorously do it. I must be an agent as well as a patient….There isn’t always some great difficulty looming in the near future, but there are always duties to be done. ‘They will be done—by me—now’ brings one back to brass tacks.”
• “Give us this day our daily bread. It means, doesn’t it, all we need for the day—‘things requisite and necessary as well for the body as for the soul.’ I should hate to make this clause ‘purely religious’ by thinking of ‘spiritual’ needs alone.”
• “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us…To forgive for the moment is not difficult. But to go on forgiving, to forgive the same offence again every time it recurs to the memory—there’s the really tussle. My resource is to look for some action of my own which is open to the same charge as the one I’m resenting. If I still smart to remember how A let me down, I must still remember how I let B down. If I find it difficult to forgive those who bullied me at school, let me, at that very moment, remember, and pray for, those I bullied.”
• “Lead us not into temptation… The point essentially is, ‘Make straight our paths. Spare us, where possible, from all crises, whether of temptation or affliction.’…As if we said, ‘In my ignorance, I have asked for A, B, and C. But don’t give me them if you foresee that they would, in reality, be either snares or sorrows…For we make plenty of such prayers. If God had granted all the silly prayers I’ve made in my life, where should I be now?
• For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen….I have an idea of the kingdom as sovereignty de jure; God, as good, would have a claim on my obedience even if he had no power. The power is the sovereignty de facto—He is omnipotent. And the glory is—well, the glory; the ‘beauty so old and new,’ the ‘light from behind the sun.’

2. Written Prayers Help Us Remain Grounded in Solid Truth

Lewis emphasized how easy it is for religion to become subjective, rooted in one’s own moods and opinions, rather than in timeless Truth. For him, written prayers were a good defense.

Written prayer, he said, “keeps me in touch with ‘sound doctrine.’ Left to oneself, one could easily slide away from the ‘faith once given’ into a phantom called ‘my religion.’”

Written prayers also can be a help, Lewis believed, in giving Christians a broader focus, a wider vision. As he said:

“It reminds me ‘what things I ought to ask’, perhaps especially when I am praying for other people. The crisis of the present moment, like the nearest telegraph post, will always loom largest. Isn’t there a danger that our great, permanent, objective necessities—often more important may get crowded out?”

For some written prayers are “too Catholic” and are avoided on that account. However, this seems to be a great mistake. If Roman Catholicism errs in some areas, this doesn’t mean that she errs in everything, or that there is nothing we could learn from our Catholic brothers and sisters.

As Rev. Mike Philliber, pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church in Midland, Texas said, the same people who oppose using written prayers or responsive readings typically have no qualms about using hymns in worship. Hymns, as he pointed out, are merely corporate written prayers set to music. Having a double standard in this area serves no purpose.

3. Limits of Written Prayers

Each Christian is at a different place in their spiritual journey, and so generically written ready-made prayers are inherently limited, as they cannot exhaustively address all of the personal issues a Christian is experiencing at any given time. In other words, though written prayers have their place, it would be a mistake if someone attempted to make their entire prayer life consist exclusively of written prayers.

“No other creature is identical with me; no other situation identical with mine,” Lewis tells his fictional friend, Malcolm. “Indeed, I myself and my situation are in continual change. A ready-made form can’t serve for my intercourse with God any more than it could serve for my intercourse with you.”

In other words, there will be times when your situation is so specific that no words, other than your own at the moment, would suffice.

Conclusion

For those who are looking for a good book of written prayers, Jackson Presbyterian Examiner would recommend the following three:

1. The Valley of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975)

• This volume, edited by the Canon of St. Alban’s Cathedral, is a collection of Puritan prayers, and is taken from the works of men such as John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, Augustus Toplady, and Charles Spurgeon, among others.

2. My Prayer Book (Concordia Publishing House, St, Louis, Missouri, 1957)

• This Lutheran publication contains prayers for a variety of occasions: Christian living, Christian worship, Family life, National and International Life, Times of Sickness, etc…

3. The Book of Common Prayer (The standard worship service guidelines for the Anglican Communion—http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Ghana/index.html)