Letter to My Child: On Prayer and Prophets

Dear Child,

            Are you not like me?  Do you not feel out of place in the Church…a foreigner to every church that you have belonged to and communed with?  Do you not fail to fit in everywhere you go?  My child, allow me to continue to elaborate why this is the case for you. 

            Keeping in step with my last letter to you I will say this: whenever the Church forsakes the tradition handed down to her, she loses sight of the unity that Jesus prayed to His Father for in John 17, and she can’t help but perpetually reinvent herself…she has to…she has nothing to ground her.  She has lost sight of herself and how to act as the bride of the King. 

            As Protestants, we continually fracture and divide because of our own short-sightedness.  While much can be said on this topic, I want to focus on you and why you, in particular, feel as though you are a foreigner in your own faith. 

            As Protestants, we have forsaken the ascetical part of the tradition that was handed down.  If you don’t know what “ascetical” means, go and learn what it means and never ever forget what it means.  For, it is a word that should define your way of life.  The ascetical tradition was always the prophetical tradition in the Church.  Whenever we forsake the ascetical, we forsake the prophetical.  You should be able to connect the dots here on your own so I will not elaborate.  All of that being said, the Church no longer makes room for or listens to God’s prophets. 

            Let me define a prophet in this way: a prophet is someone who knows the Lord and who trembles in His presence; who knows what is of God and what is not of God because a prophet knows God and His ways.  Since the tradition of the apostles that Paul talked about is of Him, from Him, you will feel out of place in every Church who does not uphold the ascetical tradition, every church that denounces monasticism.

            Whenever the ascetical tradition (true prayer) becomes a secondary option for Christians as it is in most of Protestantism…whenever prayer and asceticism simply is about enhancing something that we already have instead of gaining something we are lacking, God’s voice and will will continue to go unheard and prophets will be brushed aside.  The Church will continue to fail to make space for the prophets because it literally has no place for them and, even if it does have a place for them, that place is a very secondary position.  What matters to Protestants is knowing, not praying.  They can say that they value both.  However, knowing always trumps praying to them.  They are much more apt to listen to a learned man who may not know Christ than they are to listen to a praying man who has no “official” education.  In fact, they rule out prayer as a means of theological education altogether even though our Lord Jesus, Himself, tells us that the Spirit will lead us into all truth. 

            Prophets are always bred in isolation, in the ascetical life, through rigorous prayer, the mortification of the passions and in the implementation of the virtues.  Prophets then, and rightly so, see Christianity not so much as a worldview to be believed as a life to be lived. 

            Be warned, my child: prophets are never well received in the Church.  Just in case you haven’t put it all together yet, I am telling you about prophets and their reception by the Church because, by trying to point out the frustration you feel with the Church, I am hoping that you will see that you also have the prophetical voice inside of you.  You are frustrated because you are one of God’s prophets.  You are frustrated because you know what is of God and what is not, what honors Him and what doesn’t. 

            Again, this bears the necessity of repeating for your sake: be warned, prophets are never well received by the Church.  The ironic thing is that even though prophets know the Lord more intimately than most and they walk more closely to Him than most, they will be (and have been) labeled as heretics and trouble makers by the rest of the Church.  Why is this the case?  Because prophets upset man-made traditions as they call the Church back to God’s tradition.  Be warned, the Church has established itself in such a way where all that matters to many, if not most, is their beliefs about the Way than following the Way itself/Himself.  They will believe in things about it and will talk about it, but they won’t walk in it and they will condemn you for doing so.  They are far too comfortable walking the on the treadmill of their own safe traditions in the house they have built for themselves than to ever ascend the mountain heavenward in the creation that God has built.  If you have ears, my child, then hear what I am saying to you. 

            Lastly, do not be angry with the Church and sin in your heart against them.  Do not put them out of place as they have misplaced you.  Trust me when I tell you this: they need you.  Do not forsake them.  For the Lord has forsaken you after all of those times you’ve put Him out of place. 

            “Students are not above their Master,” our Master says.  If they rejected Him, why do you assume that they won’t also reject you?  Why are you so surprised at this?  Join the Lord in His suffering for His children, for you to are one of them.