MWP 412: Daily Christian Prayer

McCormick Theological Seminary

MWP 412: Daily Christian Prayer

Summer 2016Christine Vogel

May 16-20

May 23-27 New Melleray Abbey, Iowa773.947.6300 or 773.318.1983 (cell)

Course Description:This course explores the discipline and rhythm of communal and personal daily prayer and their significance for the practice of ministry in the 21st century. Participants will be exposed to the prayer traditions of Christian and other faith communities during the first week of the course. During the second week of the course participants will travel to northeast Iowa where they will be guests of the monks of New Melleray Abbey. An additional cost of $300 is required for room and board at the monastery. Grades will be given on a pass/fail basis.

Learning Outcomes: By the end of the course, students will:

• Understand the basic historical development of Christian communal daily prayer practices in the western church from the New Testament period to the present.
• Be familiar with contemporary efforts to reclaim communal prayer practices.
• Have some basic awareness of the prayer practices of other major religious traditions, including Islam and Judaism.
• Reflect critically on one’s own understanding of prayer.
• Develop and strengthen one’s own daily prayer practices.
• Memorize, reflect upon, and pray in community several Psalms.

Course Requirements

The learning opportunity provided by this course is primarily experiential rather than analytical or conceptual. To that end, as a participant you are asked to do the following:

1. During the two weeks of the course, engage in prayer at least twice each day using the prayer book selected from the list below.

2. Memorize Psalms 4 and 90, two of the texts used daily during compline. For the version that the monks use (and a recording of the service), go to

3. Take part in all of the offices of prayer at the monastery from Monday afternoon to Friday morning.

4. Keep a journal of your experience during the course, including your time at the monastery.

5. Attend the 7:30 pm Taize service at Ascension Church 808 South East Ave, Oak Park, IL, either on May 6 or June 3 (click here for the church’swebsite).

6. Submit 3 short writing assignments and participate in 4 forums.

7. Submit a 5-7 page written assignment following the visit to the monastery, reflecting critically on your experience in the course and identifying areas of growth. Any bibliography you include is in addition to the critical reflection content pages of the final assignment

8. PLEASE leave your cellphones at home. The five days at the monastery are intended to be a time apart from your regular routines, communications, etc.

Required Texts

St. Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict (Vintage, 1998). ISBN: 037570017X

Walter Brueggemann, Praying the Psalms: Engaging Scriptures and the Life of the Spirit (Cascade: Eugene OR, 2007). ISBN: 1556352832

Charles Cummings, Monastic Practices. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1986. ISBN: 0879079754

Scot McKnight, Praying With the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today (Paraclete: Brewster, Mass., 2006). ISBN: 1557254818

Mamdouh N. Mohamed. Salaat: The Islamic Prayer from A to Z. 2003 (or 2005). ISBN: 0965287742

Additional required readings will be available on Moodle.

In addition, choose one of the following prayer books to use throughout the course:

The Book of Common Prayer. Many editions are available—for example: New York: HarperOne, 1979. ISBN 0866835407.

The Book of Common Worship. Again, several editions are available. Try: Louisville: KY. Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. ISBN: 0664220320.

A New Zealand Prayer Book; He Karakia Mihinare O Aotearoa (New York: HarperOne, 1997). ISBN 006060199X

Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community (New York: HarperOne, 2002). ISBN: 9780060013240.

Desmond Tutu, An African Prayer Book (New York: Doubleday, 2006). ISBN 0385516495

Phyllis Tickle, The Divine Hours, Volume III: Prayers for Springtime: A Manual for Prayer (Doubleday, 2006). ISBN 0385505574

Philip Newell, Celtic Benediction: Morning and Night Prayer (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). ISBN 0802839045

Ruben P. Jon and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants. Nashville, TN: Upper Room, 1998. ISBN: 083580559X

Course Schedule

May 6 or June 3

Attend the Taize service at Ascension Churchin Oak Park (more information in “Course Requirements” above).

Before midnight on May 13

Please answer the three questions in the first forum as a way to introduce yourselves to your colleagues in the course.

1st Forum

First: Describe your experience of praying with/in church (including the use of a prayer book, awareness of the church year, etc. if relevant). How would you currently describe your preferences? What are some of the benefits and/or problems that you have experienced with either or both?

Second: Identify your current religious tradition and its use of daily prayer.

Third: Are you willing and able to drive other students to New Melleray Abbey next week (assuming expenses will be shared)?

Daily between May 16-20

- Using the prayer book that you chose for the course, engage in daily prayer at least twice each day.

- Memorize Psalms 4 and 90, two of the texts used daily during compline at the monastery. For the version that the monks use (and a recording of the service), go to

May 16: An introduction to prayer and an overview of Christian liturgical prayer

Please read the pages from Heschel posted on Moodle (an introduction to prayer) and the McKnight book (an introduction to Christian liturgical prayer), participate in the second forum on Heschel, and submit the short assignment on McKnight.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man’s Quest for God (Santa Fe: Aurora Press, 1998). On Moodle, pages 3-4 (“The Sigh”) and 30-46. These pages are chosen as an introduction to a classic book on prayer. Reflecting some of the concerns and language of its original 1954 publishing, it nevertheless speaks some eternal truths about prayer in human life.

2nd Forum

In 2 or 3 sentences, please relate one observation from the book that particularly struck you – what did you find especially poignant or perceptive?

May 17:

1st Assignment

After reading Scot McKnight,Praying With the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today (Paraclete: Brewster, Mass., 2006), respond to the following four items and submit on Moodle (no more than a page or two for all four).

1. In his introductory chapter (pp. 1-19), McKnight distinguishes between praying in the Church and praying with the Church. Please describe both of these activities in one sentence.

2. Throughout his book, McKnight refers frequently to Benedict’s Portiuncola. Please describe this (i.e., its physical reality) and outline the metaphor about prayer towards which McKnight thinks this points (pp. 1-19).

3. At the end pp. 23-66, McKnight asserts that Jesus’ prayers were both conservative and progressive. Please give some of the evidence that he cites for Jesus as conservative (2 examples) and progressive (2 examples).

4. After reading pp. 69-150, go to the OCA web site (use the address on p. 97 or this link) and find a prayer that reflects at least 3 of the 4 emphases that Zernov and McKnight discern in Eastern Orthodox prayer. Copy this into your answer and note which emphases you recognize and where in the prayer you see them.

May 18: The development and content of Christian Prayer

Read the following two articles posted on Moodle.

L. Edward Phillips, “Prayer in the First Four Centuries A.D.,” in A History of Prayer: The First to the Fifteenth Century (ed. Roy Hammerling; Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 13; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 31-58. This is an overview of the early Christian development of the practice of daily prayer at set times of the day together in community. The chapter includes a description of various gestures and posture for prayer, the theological significance of prayer in early Christian community, and a brief discussion of prayer practices in early Judaism (including the community of the Dead Sea scrolls).

George Guiver, Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2001 [1988]), pp. 149-73: “Part III – The Content of Daily Prayer.” This is a description of the parts and functions of the Christian daily prayer service.

May 19: Jewish and Muslim prayer

Please read the following and submit the short assignment

Mamdouh N. Mohamed. Salaat: The Islamic Prayer from A to Z. Falls Church, VA: B 200 Inc., 2005.

Lawrence Hoffman, The Way Into Jewish Prayer. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2000. You will find pages 6-10 (a discussion of the central prayer in Jewish liturgy and it’s development) and pages 19-32 (a description of fixed prayer in 3 locations: daily in the synagogue, at home [usually around the table], the world) on Moodle.

2nd Assignment:

In less than a page, name 5 features that Christian prayer shares in common with Mamdoud Mohamed’s presentation of Islamic prayer, and summarize Hoffman’s definition of the Amidah (see esp. Hoffmann pp. 6-10).

May 20: Praying the Psalms and praying the Lord’s Prayer

Please complete the following readings and submit the assignment and forum

James L. Mays, “Psalms and Prayer: Congregational Lectures on Prayer-Psalms as Lesson and Liturgy,” in Preaching and Teaching the Psalms (ed. P.D. Miller and Gene M. Tucker; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 3-29. Link to essay on google scholar. (You can also find a copy on the Moodle site.) In this essay James Mays, Psalm scholar and ordained Presbyterian minister, analyzes the separate elements of individual laments/petitions (i.e., the vocative address, description of trouble, etc.) in terms of their purpose and function for the one who prays the Psalm.

3rd Assignment:

Using the Abbey’s version of Ps 4 (a text that is regularly used in the office of compline), indicate where you see the various elements that Mays discusses, and any particular resonances between his discussion of them and your own understanding of Ps 4. Also note the elements that he discusses but are missing from Ps 4. This assignment should be about 1-2 pages long.

Readings on the Lord’s Prayer

- Archbishop of Canterbury's address at the Lutheran World Federation Assembly, “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread” (link)

- Simone Weil, “Concerning the Our Father.” (link) (the link can also be found on Moodle) Before you read this, please spend 10 minutes or so reading something of her biography on the Internet.

- Augustine’s letter to the widow Proba on prayer, specifically the portion that deals with the Lord’s Prayer (in Nicene and Post Nicean Fathers vol. 1; Letter CXXX) read pp. 459-69 on this link

3rd Forum:

In one or two paragraphs, please relate to your classmates something that you found interesting in one of the readings on the Lord’s Prayer and state why it struck you.

Before arriving at the monastery on May 23

Read the following books and articles:

-St. Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict (Vintage, 1998). ISBN: 037570017X

-Charles Cummings, Monastic Practices. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1986.

-“The Paradox of the Psalms” from Kathleen Norris’, Cloister Walk (pp.90-107), on Moodle.

-The short posting on lectio divinafound here at this link

-The abbey’s introduction to making a retreat posted here

During the week we will also be discussing the short Bruggemann book, Praying the Psalms. You may wish to begin reading it before we met together at the abbey, but there should also be enough time to complete it while we are together if you so choose.

May 23-27

Trip to New Melleray Monastery. Plan to arrive in time for lunch at noon. Our first class session at the monastery will begin at 1:30pm.

Typical schedule: After an orientation to the monastery on the day we arrive, we will participate in the daily prayers, experience various presentations by the host monks, make a visit to the nearby TrappistineAbbey, and participate in hour-long daily class meetings (which will include discussion of the Brueggemann book) and lectio divina.

Due By June 10

4th Assignment:

Following the visit to the monastery, prepare a 5-7page written assignment (not counting the bibliography)in which you reflect critically on your experience in the course and identify areas where you hope to grow. Submit on Moodle.

4th Forum

In Praying With the Church, McKnight asks, “Why should we pray with the church?” and gives two answers (pp. 11-12): 1. “in order to come into union with God” (that is, conversing with God and learning to love God and becoming closer to the people who surround God’s heart), and 2. “because we confess the communion of saints” (that is, joining our voices with those who pray on heaven and earth). Having “prayed with the church” intensively for over a week, do these answers make sense to you? Why or why not? How would you answer his question?

1