A Show of Faith
Millennial, Priest, Minister, and Rabbi walk into a radio station...
A Show of Faith
January 5, 2025 Interfaith Prayer: Exploring Liturgical Structure and Spiritual Connection
Join us as we engage in a thought-provoking exchange about the structured and liturgical nature of Catholic prayer, compared to the free-flowing evangelical approach. We bring fresh insights and questions into the mix, making this episode a tapestry of spiritual perspectives that promises to enhance your understanding of religious practices.
Our conversation offers a fresh dynamic, as we weave through the contrasts and similarities between Jewish and Christian prayers. Discover how these traditions provide a spiritual connection and explore the theological implications and practical applications of prayer. From the heart's free flow to the rhythmic cadence of liturgy, this episode is a rich exploration that will leave you with a deeper appreciation and an eagerness to ponder the role of prayer in your life. Whether you're a devout follower or simply curious, tune in for a discussion that's sure to be as educational as it is engaging.
Love comes down with a divorce, son. Well, it takes a storm, baby, but I'm strong to do the door, cause I gotta have faith. I gotta have faith Cause I got to have faith, faith, faith. I got to have faith, faith, faith, faith. Baby, I know you're asking me to stay. Say, please, please, please, don't go away. You see I'm giving you the blues. Maybe there you knew every word you say. I can't help but think of yesterday and I know you tied me down to love a boy. Blues Before this river becomes an ocean, before you throw my heart back on the floor. Oh, baby, I reconsider my foolish notion, but I need someone to hold me back. But I'll wait for something more.
Speaker 2:Yes, I gotta have faith. Welcome to A Show of Faith where a professor, priest, millennial and rabbi discuss theology and philosophy and anything else of interest in religion. If you have any response to our topics or any comments regarding what we say, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at ashowoffaith at hotmailcom. You can hear our shows again and again by listening pretty much everywhere podcasts are heard. Our priest is Fr Mario Arroyo, retired pastor of St Cyril of Alexandria in the 10,000 block of Vostok.
Speaker 3:An honor to be with you.
Speaker 2:Our professor, david Capes is our Baptist minister and director of academic programming for the Laniero Theological Library, but he can't be with us tonight. Rudy Cohn is our millennial. He's a systems engineer and has his master's degree in theology from the University of St Thomas. Are we done? There he is. I am Rabbi Stuart Federo, retired rabbi from Congregation Jarhush-Alon, the Clear Lake area of Houston, texas. Jim Robinson is our producer and engineer, author of the book I Am With you Always, matthew 2820, a daily devotional. Corey and Miranda are our board operators and together, jim and Miranda and Corey help us sound fantastic. And tonight we also have with us Valerie. Hi, valerie, and welcome to A Show of Faith.
Speaker 3:It's good to be with you Good to be with you too. The only thing I have to say to you is I cannot hear a word you're saying, because I have a microphone but I don't have a plug. So we will just I'm able to participate, but not until they get that little plug right, we always have things we need to plug. Oh geez but anyway, why I am the show?
Speaker 5:so I can talk over Mario and he can't hear me.
Speaker 3:What did he say?
Speaker 2:Exactly that. He said he can talk over you because you can't hear him.
Speaker 3:That's exactly correct. I cannot. So, here he comes, thank you. Thank you, valerie. I just got a little plug extension, but it may or may not work. No, it'll work, depending on whether this is a screw-on. It will not work. It won't work Because there's two types there's a screw-on and there's a the regular kind and that's the regular kind. So, anyway, yes, Tonight I would like to focus on prayer. Tonight I would like to focus on prayer, the traditions of prayer, both in the Jewish and in the Christian tradition.
Speaker 2:Yes, although.
Speaker 3:David's not here to defend himself tonight. Well, no, I mean, I think prayer would be, you know, somewhat the same in all Christian traditions, or at least, well, maybe I'm not convinced of that. No, in Catholic tradition there would be a much more, I would say, a deeper reacher, understanding of prayer than in a lot of the evangelical traditions.
Speaker 2:And I think evangelical tends to be only off the heart.
Speaker 3:Only what.
Speaker 2:Free-flowing from the heart. It's Free flowing from the heart.
Speaker 3:It's not texts, it's not liturgical.
Speaker 2:That's the word. Thank you, there's no liturgy to it. There's no liturgy to it, which means that your discussion of prayer and my discussion of prayer are going to be a lot more overlapped.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I would like to divide the night into two different sections. One is what we would call liturgical prayer, that is, the prayer that we do when we come together, and, in liturgy, richard Averbeck In liturgy, darrell Bock In liturgy. Now, would you define what you think liturgy is, richard?
Speaker 2:Averbeck, a specific text that you go through in prayer. It's a specific text that you read, either out loud or to yourself, or you chant with other people, but it begins with a specific pre-written text. It's a liturgy. It could be in the form of a group prayer, responsive reading, I'm not sure what else to call it, but it's a specific text.
Speaker 3:Well, and it's interesting because it's a specific text, but I don't know if you would agree with me on this, but I would say that it is more—I'm speaking more of a Catholic understanding. Okay, You're speaking to God through the liturgy, through a preset kind of format. But I think God already knows what you're going to say. So I think it's more for the person.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. What do you mean by that? A couple of things. First of all, there are plenty of times where I've spoken to somebody about not the liturgical form but the personal prayer, and what's the first thing they're going to say? I don't know what to say. Yes, and a liturgy gives you what to say.
Speaker 2:When David wrote the Psalms, he expressed emotions and feelings and the experiences that more than just he had, and it gives them the words to say or the things to sing in the temple. That's correct. So I think that that's one thing. The other element to this is that I don't think the purpose of prayer, especially the liturgical kind let me rephrase that I'm exclusively talking about the liturgical kind I don't think the purpose of prayer is to tell God what we need. I don't think it's gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, now, now, now, or I'm not going to believe in you I think the function and purpose of that kind of prayer you know there's an old prayer book. I haven't seen it or used it in a long time. It's an old prayer book and the text read the person who rises from prayer a better person, that is, the person whose prayers have been answered.
Speaker 3:That's very good.
Speaker 2:In other words, the Jewish view of especially liturgical prayer is that it's not supposed to change God. Hey God, I need this. Hey God, let me win the lottery. Yes, okay, it's to change ourselves, that's correct, and to align ourselves and our will with the will of God. That's exactly right. But I think there's also in Judaism, I think it's true in Catholicism, david's not here to defend himself, but I don't think it's there, and that is that it is speaking of Judaism. It's an Eastern religion, it's not a Western religion. We don't call it the Middle East, we don't call it Middle West, we call it the Middle East. And when you think of Eastern prayer, you think of meditations, you think of the meditative state. That liturgical prayer puts you in meditative state. That liturgical prayer puts you in Mario.
Speaker 2:There have been plenty of times where something happened in the world, whatever, and there would be a part of the liturgy that struck me as pertinent to whatever the event was. My point is that when I would point it out to everybody, it was literally like I broke them from a trance Light, not very deep, but nevertheless a meditative state, which we call a trance. No, we don't. That's a bad term. Forget the word trance, yeah, but it's a meditative state they're in. And when I say now, on page whatever, when it says this, you know, we remember that today's newspaper told us that, or whatever. But when I first start speaking, that's not the liturgy. It's like what, what do you say? What? It's like they're coming out of something a a meditative state that, even very lightly, the liturgical service puts them in. The purpose of prayer or the function of liturgical prayer is it puts you in a meditative state that I believe is meant to transcend time and space.
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's also the purpose of pre-written prayers, because that's what liturgy is. Yes, it's a set of actions and it's a set of words that are prescribed.
Speaker 2:Body motions included Body motions and that are prescribed.
Speaker 3:Now, a lot of times I hear people saying well, you know, you've got to pray from the heart.
Speaker 2:And they're right, yes. But you can still do that as a meditation too. Yes, right.
Speaker 3:But what their meaning is? Their meaning express you, express what's in your heart to God. But within the liturgy there is room for that same thing there is, but the chief purpose of liturgy is to go the other way.
Speaker 2:And I would say, from a Jewish perspective, the chief, would you call it purpose? Yeah, purpose of Jewish prayer isn't, is not the what's the opposite of liturgical, from the heart, what you were just talking about. Yeah, I don't believe that that's the purpose of the 90, well, I don't know what percentage, but a huge percentage of Jewish prayer is from the liturgy, the Siddur, the prayer book, and there's room within it for the from the heart, from the soul and outpouring of the heart and soul. There's room for it. There's a part of the prayer is service that is read in silence. But you don't know what I'm saying. I don't know what you're saying. I could be pouring out my heart to God, I could be ignoring the liturgy Anything's possible but that's the point at which you're talking to God directly from the heart and soul.
Speaker 3:But I still understand that liturgical prayer. When we get together for Mass, for example, I always let me back up from this perspective. I always tell people, I ask people, how do you pray? And 98% of the time people say, well, I talk to God and I go. There's your problem. There's your problem, you know why? Because 98% of prayer should be listening to God, not talking to God. When you are talking to God, it's you who's talking and in order for a prayer to be successful is for you to listen to God, for God's Word to get inside of you and to begin to reformat you in the image and likeness of the God you're praying to.
Speaker 2:So to me see—. But is that necessarily done by listening or by by reciting?
Speaker 3:yes, but see, in reciting you are actually listening, like for example when I say an example for example, let the lord's prayer. When I say our father who arch in heaven, hallowed be thy name. I know I saying it to God, but the echoes of those words are firing inside of me in all kinds of different places. They're preset. But I am hearing much more and I am being changed by those words Like one thing, give me one thing.
Speaker 2:You're hearing that you're changed by in those same words.
Speaker 3:The moment I say Our Father, I feel very much notice. It's not my Father, it is our, our, and so I'm feeling, the very moment I say our Father, I am almost, I am transported intellectually and imagination-wise to the presence of God in all people, that it's all of us approaching God as a family.
Speaker 2:Darrell Bock. So you're listening to the words which become a reminder to you, richard Averbeck, that's correct.
Speaker 3:They echo Darrell Bock.
Speaker 2:And basically on their content.
Speaker 3:Richard Averbeck. Not only they echo, they bring forth all kinds of different things memories and ideas and things like that and they may be words that I'm saying to God, but he already knows what's coming. He taught us that, and so the prayer is more for it to form me than it is for that, then Rudy, we're going to get your input when we come back from the thick, because I think you have probably a very similar Catholic understanding than I do. Okay, by the way, I can hear you now, rudy.
Speaker 2:So now you've got to be careful.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 5:Lord Okay.
Speaker 3:This is KNTH 1070, and we'll be right back.
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Speaker 5:Oh, a little prayer for you the moment I wake up.
Speaker 1:Before I put on my makeup I say a little prayer for you, clever Okay.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the.
Speaker 3:Show of Faith, and I am considering the answer. Rudy, join in. What are your understandings or your thoughts or your ruminations on this?
Speaker 5:My ruminations, you know, to me you guys are talking about. So we're talking about prayer, right, and the importance that it has and how it's sort of how it's distinct, okay, and fundamentally, when, for example, the Lord's Prayer right, or Rabbi, the Psalms, we're listening. So when we speak it out, we're also hearing something right. But we're speaking out and also hearing the Word of God, the literal Word of God, spoken right. So something about prayer and something that has always kind of fascinated me is it's particularly contemplative prayer, and contemplative prayer is sort of exactly what it sounds like. It's fundamentally rooted in Scripture, right, and individuals they sort of encounter God in silence. You know, the Catechism talks about the silent love right, the simple gaze upon God, and this is why the liturgy is so important.
Speaker 5:But I also wanted to talk about something else, because to me and for the Maranoses I've just found, there's a lot of mystical aspects, at least within the Catholic tradition, associated with prayer and particularly contemplative prayer, and I can get into that a little bit later.
Speaker 5:You have saints like Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, you know, who experienced all kinds of things, and even Fr Pino Spetralcini, you know, which is a more modern contemporary mystic who died, I think, in 67, 68. But what's interesting to me is the actual studies that have been done around prayer and there's something called I don't know if you guys are aware, but there's delta waves, beta waves, alpha waves, right, it's kind of these wave frequencies that the brain engages in that are associated with essentially different modes that we find ourselves in, for example, when we're sleeping or when we're out there or when we're this. So they've actually scanned brains, done MRIs, done all sorts of stuff, and it's interesting that when people engage in genuine right that's one thing that I caught in one of the articles you sent out. It says right here prayer without concentration is aching to a lifeless body. Okay, and I think that's a Say that body.
Speaker 3:Okay, say that again.
Speaker 2:Would you say that again?
Speaker 5:Prayer without concentration is aching to a lifeless body.
Speaker 3:Is akin to what A lifeless body Akin to a lifeless body. Yeah, he was saying Akin. And that's because he's one of these dad-burned Hispanics who doesn't know how to speak English.
Speaker 2:I'm beginning to think. Let me tell you.
Speaker 5:Good thing, I know how to build things up. Okay, so when people have engaged in genuine contemplative prayer, then what we found is that these individuals actually, especially over prolonged periods of time, have actual brain structure changes changes, for example, they did a huge what I mean huge is time. So they grabbed these nuns and they studied their brain waves for a long time and they saw that these nuns had increased gray matter density, in particular areas linked to empathy and emotional regulation. So as individuals engage in genuine prayer, it's almost like that connection to divine, to the transcendent, is able to kind of better manage, or allow us to manage with more peace, the sort of the chaos of this world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's actually quite. I think what rudy's just basically saying is that prayer is good for you, is physically good for you they have good for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have studies of hindu priests that also show incredible control over over their bodies, body functions. But, rudy, I don't need science to tell me that prayer is a good thing.
Speaker 5:I see Well the good thing is that science can't deny it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I think it's important, you know, I think it's important not for us who are religious, but for people who are skeptical of religion. Right Because these days everybody wants to say religion is useless, you know? And what's the point of it? And I think what a lot of scientific confirmation of religion does is it doesn't convert anyone.
Speaker 3:But it does make the case for religion more plausible especially to those who might be skeptical that's right, and it's easier to defend right than it is, because we're right now, in terms of religion, we are in a in a culture that is very inimical to religion. It's it's very anti-religion, and so um it. By the way, I am I am just just as a side note I am reading a book that is just amazing on prayer no on on religion and science, but it's a critique of of the scientific attack on religion and it it's by David Berlinski and it's called the Devil's Delusion. The Devil's Delusion.
Speaker 2:The.
Speaker 3:Devil's Delusion. It's excellent.
Speaker 2:That sounds like a response to Hitchin or one of those Berlinski. It's B-E-R. The God Delusion.
Speaker 3:No, no, but that's why this is the opposite. Right, the Devil's Delusion? No, no, but that's why this is the opposite. Right, the devil's delusion. The devil's delusion is Berlinski B-E-R-L-I-N-S-K-I.
Speaker 2:I okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's very, very good. But he's talking about the point of, you know, of science, that science just exaggerates all over the place and they make believe that they have all kinds of surety on all kinds of teachings and when they don't. When you try to connect the dots, and he's a scientist himself and he says this is just bull. So anyway, we got to go to a break. So this is 1070 KNTH. You're listening to the Show of Faith and we will be right back.
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Speaker 1:Dream Whenever I want you. All I have to do is dream, dream, dream dream when I feel blue In the night and I need you to. I have to do Is dream I can make you mine.
Speaker 9:Taste those lips of wine.
Speaker 1:Anytime, night or day. Only trouble is Dream wins. I'm dreaming my life away. Three, four, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3:No, they just don't sing it like that anymore. Those are some wonderful songs.
Speaker 2:Anyway, you were going to say something, you were going to react A couple of things, but first of all, it's kind of the same thing, but it's a little bit of a different angle. You mentioned earlier about that. We need to listen to the prayer. Yes, it's kind of the same thing, but it's a little bit of a different angle. You mentioned earlier about that. We need to listen to the prayer.
Speaker 2:Yes, and by listening to the prayer, we're listening to God. That's correct. Okay, there's a Liturgical prayer, liturgical prayer, but there's a. What I'm trying to say is that Judaism also has this idea of praying from the soul, praying from the you know, which is not liturgical prayer. That's what we're going to next, which is… Private prayer. Private prayer from the heart, from the soul. Okay, and there's a saying that I have read, that when we pray not the liturgical, but from the heart and soul, when we pray, it's us speaking to God. When we study the Bible religion, that's when God speaks to us. I just thought that was interesting. That is interesting. Right, all right.
Speaker 2:Second thing is we have email. Okay, what is it? Thank you, rudy for pointing it out to me. This is from Tom in Alabama. And thank you, rudy for pointing it out to me, this is from Tom in Albin. Is there anything contrary to the Jewish religion in the Lord's Prayer, aka the Our Father, in other words, would there be any reason a Jew could not recite that prayer? Yes, if you take a look at the different parts to the Lord's Prayer, you can find antecedents in Judaism for every one, almost every one, no, I'm pretty sure every one. At the end, however and I know what you're going to say, morrow it's not technically part of the Lord's Prayer. What's that Most people end it? Many denominations end it with… the power and the glory, and all that In the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, no, no, no, yeah, that's not part of it.
Speaker 2:It's not part of it, but it's added to it by many different denominations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that…. No, no, no, it's not added at the end, it started at the beginning. Okay, what do you mean? In other words, when you're going to pray the Our Father, the difference between Catholic and Protestant is that the Our Father, at the end we say lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That ends the Catholic.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:The Protestant goes on for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever. In the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit is the invocation when you start any kind of prayer.
Speaker 2:Okay, that part of it which I have heard is ending the Lord's Prayer is obviously not going to be a Judaism. It is not.
Speaker 3:It is not. I've never in 47 years…. I knew you were going to say this 47 years I've been a priest. I've never heard an Our Father end.
Speaker 2:At Protestant services Never priest, I've never heard and our father and at protestant service never. Okay, all right. The other aspect of this is that it is, in fact, a christian prayer. So, and david and I have gotten into this, by the way, it gotten it, whatever the word is in disagreement over this? Okay, okay, but if you start reciting that prayer, to my knowledge, anybody and everybody isn't going to start thinking about the Jewish antecedents that created it or the milieu in which it was developed or created. Okay, they're going to hear it as a Christian prayer. And because it is a Christian prayer and associated as a Christian prayer no, the Jews would not recite it Right and associated as a Christian prayer no, the Jews would not recite it.
Speaker 2:Interesting Right there's an admonition in I believe it's Deuteronomy that basically says don't do things to me the way other people do to their gods.
Speaker 3:Interesting Right See. For us, that may be one of the big differences Because, like whenever, I am between Jews and Christians because, like, for example, when I went to your services, I could pray along exactly with what you were praying, because we're not going to have anything that's going to exclude you.
Speaker 2:That's correct, but as soon as a Christian church brings in a prayer that is… Exclusively Christian …then that excludes us. Yes, that is correct. Which is the problem with although it's not our topic, that's the problem with public worship. Yeah, whether it's an invocation before a meal or before a baseball game, or what have you, gary, or before a baseball game, or what have you.
Speaker 5:Rudy. Gary, it's just just going back to Collins. I understood it more with the actual words. I understand what you mean, Rabbi, with it being, of course, everybody. When you say the Lord's Prayer, you think a Christian prayer, right, and I get that. But I guess I sort of understood it as is there any issue with the actual content, or is it because it's?
Speaker 2:a Christian prayer that it's no, no, no, only if there was something in it that was exclusively Christian. But from Mario's perspective, it doesn't exist in there. But as I said it's not Mario's perspective.
Speaker 3:It is the exist in there but, as I said, it's not Mario's perspective, it is the actual academic perspective.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, mario, absolutely Exactly as you say, but there are every single element of it you can find in Jewish sources preceding or leading up to the time of Jesus Do?
Speaker 3:you know why Do you?
Speaker 2:know why do you?
Speaker 3:know why? Why? Because it was composed by a jew or a group of them jesus yeah, I know who you meant. Yes, right so it was composed by a jew, so you would think that it was had antecedents in jewish prayer, which is what you would expect. That's correct. Right, that's correct. Now let's go into private prayer. Yes, okay, rudy, why don't you start it out? Comment on private prayer.
Speaker 5:I think, for my personal sort of undertaking. I find that to me it's sort of what I engage in every day. So as soon as I wake up, right, thank you Lord for another day, you know, another opportunity to help be a disciple, to help be a sort of testament of good in this world right, of good in this world, right. So to me, the private prayer is actually in those moments of stillness and quiet where maybe I'm driving somewhere or I'm in an elevator right for two minutes and I just think for a second in my head I'm just like you know what. Thank you Lord. Thank you Like I'm just like you know what. Thank you Lord, thank you Like I'm just utterly blessed.
Speaker 5:So to me, what I engage in a lot of private prayer is those in-between moments of maybe it sounds bad, but those in-between moments of the noise, if you will. Right, I'm in a meeting or I'm in the job site and it's loud, but we all have moments of stillness and quietness right when our minds sort of start flooding with the issues oh, I forgot to do this, or I forgot to do that, or I shouldn't have told my wife this, or I shouldn't have told her that or this or whatever, told my wife this, or I shouldn't have told her that or this or whatever, but I find myself just constantly kind of turning back and trying to do something more positive with those moments, which is, I guess, from my perspective, is just being thankful, really, you know let me jump in and then now you can go on.
Speaker 3:I have a very weird prayer life, so do I. My prayer life is apophatic, now I know, but I need to explain what that means.
Speaker 2:Wasn't that a.
Speaker 3:Civil War no. Apophatics no, that's apomatics oh.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, you're right, jeez, god forgive him. He does not know what he is doing. Okay, apophatic meaning my prayer is very wordless, I don't use words. There's an old man. A long, long time ago I was talking to an old old man and we were talking about prayer and he said something that describes perfectly what I have come to. And I said well, how do you pray? And he said he sits before God anywhere and he says I look at him and he looks at me and that's it. In other words, there is a stillness, a stillness of being present and in common union. And I would add I look at him, he looks at me, but I watch him watching me, because a lot of times when he's watching me, I gain insight into what he's saying to me, but it's not. I find it hard to use many words in prayer because I think they're wasted for me, and so, at most, I'll use a few words Whenever I encounter a reality that is making me feel and I have feelings that I know are not correct all I do is inside of me, I just stare at him, and him is just darkness.
Speaker 3:Who's him? God? Okay, I stare at him, but him, he's in the darkness. And I just said lift me up, meaning change my gaze, my cause. I'm looking through the eye. I'm looking through the eyes of change my gaze. Yeah, because my feelings are being reflected by the way. I'm looking at something, right, you know, for example, I could look at somebody who makes me very angry and when I say lift me up, I just mean help me to see this person like you see him, and not just all in my feelings. Or if I look at a beautiful woman sexually and I I can say I'm fine, but lift me up so I can look at her as your daughter, so that it's not the denial of your present experience emotionally, but it's the transfiguration of that experience through see, here's my Transfiguration, yeah.
Speaker 3:Or what's the word? I don know, but here's. Here's the point. Remember what I said. The definition of love is yes, love is the decision to unite yourself with god in caring for the good of another, no matter how you feel. The the moment I start praying, the very first thing I have to do is unite myself with God. And so, even when we pray that little, you can come back and you go on the other side. But when we pray, when we listen to that, I say a little prayer for you. Yes, every time you pray for another person, what the heck are you doing? You are uniting yourself with God, right, and caring for the good of the other, no matter how you feel. That's what you're doing, right, love, okay, you're joining in God's love for another person or another thing. So, and we'll get into Jewish private prayer when we come back this is KMTH 1070, and we'll be right back.
Speaker 7:AM10 when we come back.
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Speaker 3:Oh the girl from Ipanema, yes, the girl from.
Speaker 1:Ipanema. Yes, the girl from Ipanema goes walking and when she passes, when she passes goes, ah, when she walks she's like a summer that swings so cool and sways so gently that when she passes, when, she passes goes.
Speaker 3:Oh, enjoy it, baby, because it's all going to rot.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to A Show of Faith. I'll answer instead of the answer. Can I tell her All right, welcome back to A Show of Faith.
Speaker 3:You're allowing yourself to be carried off by the girl from Ipanema.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, now say a prayer and come back to reality.
Speaker 2:Just a couple of asides. My first pulpit coming out of seminary after ordination was in Greenville, mississippi. And in going to the South, you know we were told the Jewish community is heavily influenced by the Protestant community of the South and you will be at a congregant's home, you will be out doing something in the world and everybody present will look at you and say, rabbi, lead us in a prayer. And from that second on you're on and you better be able to. You know pardon the word produce Okay, and the best advice I ever got was look at your feelings, look at the circumstances and express what you feel. That you know. It could be as simple as thank you, god, for the friendships that we share on the air. Okay, it can be any, but speak from the heart. Tell me the statement that when you speak from the heart, your words will go to the heart and I think that prayer. You know how weeks, well, it could be months by now.
Speaker 2:We were talking about art as an expression of the soul. Yes, to the soul, yes. And the artist, the painter, the sculptor, whatever medium they work in, they're expressing a part of themselves in what they are making and then, when another person sees it what the artist has expressed. They feel Okay. They feel Okay and only thinking about it for tonight, mario, but I think there's an element of that when we pray from the heart, when we're and it doesn't matter if it's what were your few words of prayer? Epiphatic, no, no, no, when you would pray you would say, oh yeah, oh, I would just lift me up, right, lift me up, but that's a hope of the heart, that's a request of the heart, it's an expression of the heart and soul. Yes, and I think that that is personal and private, but I think it's connective, it is okay. I think it is uh, what's your? Uh, it's religion, religios, whatever the word is really. God, which?
Speaker 4:is. That's why I said to reconnect.
Speaker 2:To reconnect, okay, you are connecting yourself with God, who is greater. And to me, when I was a kid in religious school, okay, we had what basically you could call a catechism, as funny as that may sound to you, but it was basically statement, statement, statement, statement, statement. And what is prayer? Prayer is talking to God, prayer is talking to God. Prayer is talking to God.
Speaker 3:I mean it was liturgical but it was almost a. It's interesting because we have a very similar thing, but in Catholic theology it's prayer, lifting your mind and heart to God.
Speaker 2:And there are different ways to me of saying the same thing. Yeah, okay, but we're coming out of time. But in well David, in Catholic thought, is there anything at all at all that would be classified as a wasted prayer? Let me explain what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Interesting yeah, okay, I'm driving home and I see a fire engine head into the neighborhood and my instinct might be oh, please, god, don't let that be my home. But it's either your home or it's not your home. By saying the prayer, the fire isn't going to jump from one home to another. It's a brachalavatala, it's a wasted prayer, prayer for nothingness. Okay, better to say, better to pray. Please, god, give those firemen strength to help whoever needs the help. Please speed their way to get there in time. That's a real prayer. But please don't let it be my house. It's either already your house or it's already not your house and the prayer is not going to. It's a wasted prayer.
Speaker 3:Well, we don't ever use those terms a wasted prayer, but I would say that kind of thing. You know, even I have seen comments said that you should not say, for example, I have been blessed with a lot of X, y, z, I've been blessed with this, or, thanks be to God, it didn't happen to me, because what you're basically saying is as long as this happens to somebody else'm okay, I'm okay, yeah, so I don't know, uh for us.
Speaker 2:So there's a direction to pray well, not direction. There's a, there's a movement towards a better prayer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think that there's better prayers and worse prayers. Yeah, me too, you know, because you basically that's why the apostles asked Jesus teach us to pray, because we don't know how and we can pray badly. And even St Paul says you don't get what you ask for because you ask wrongly. It's interesting because for a Christian I like to say this to people and people, because Jesus says in the Gospels he says says ask for whatever. Whatever you will ask in my name, and people think, oh, okay, I, if I say I want to win the lottery in jesus name, in jesus name, okay, in my name, does not mean that what does it mean?
Speaker 3:it means, for example, if I say to you stewart, would you please? I'm, I'm not well and I need to be re-presented at a meeting and I'm asking you to go and represent me. Okay, am I asking you to go in my name? Am I asking you to go in there and do whatever the heck you want?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:I am notice what I am doing. I am trusting that you know me well enough, right that? I can represent you that you can represent in my name means you are inside of my, my will what I would want. When jesus says what you want in his name, it means that you are in such common union with him that your wills are almost identical Not quite, but you're in the common union of in his name you can represent him.
Speaker 2:And somehow I just don't think that God necessarily wants me to have that lottery.
Speaker 3:No, rudy, get in here. What do you want to say about this?
Speaker 5:Brother, you're never going to win the lottery. I know God loves you that much.
Speaker 2:Every time.
Speaker 5:I play.
Speaker 2:It's a lesson from God that I'm not going to win. Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 5:Well, I think there's another level too to what you're talking about. I mean, fundamentally what you're speaking. It's not necessarily a wasted thing, right with the example you gave. But I was thinking, what if you take it up another notch? What if I say something like you know, rabbi really kicked me off today.
Speaker 5:I hope Jesus, he, you know he's precious to something right, like wishing, praying for something malicious to somebody else, and I think I don't know if in God's infinite mercy there would be.
Speaker 5:But I think he's capable of grabbing all moments and all prayers to kind of change the heart of man, if you will. But I think there are some things that I think people engage in that are just greedy and to some respect also sinful, I would argue, because you're just thinking there and you want something you know to get ahead on somebody or to get over something. And, like you said, it's not like I don't want, I'm not praying that that not be my house. I pray that those people aren't home, regardless of whose house that is right or regardless of who's working there, and I think it just speaks about a majority, sorry. It speaks about the maturity of an individual and their prayer life and how well they are connected sort of to that message of love of God, that kind of dictates how. I don't want to say how well or not well they pray right, but at least how meaningful they are On that line on how we pray.
Speaker 2:This is an email that we got from a very long-time listener who calls himself Presbyterian Mark, and he writes Guys, one thing that greatly changed my prayer life was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer stressed that the Lord's Prayer is the prayer the Christian must pray. So why not structure your prayer to follow the format of the Lord's Prayer? It gets the emphasis off of what you want from God and focuses you on making God's will be done on earth, as it is already done in heaven. Grace and peace. Presbyterian.
Speaker 3:Mark. But it asks give us this day our daily bread.
Speaker 2:Yeah, make our necessities, meet our necessities, meet our necessities.
Speaker 3:Right. Yeah, I want to say something before we get too far. I have no idea when the show ends anymore, is it?
Speaker 2:back on 5 seconds after, or is it back on?
Speaker 3:you know, I'm saying this to people in case you mess up because we're going to mess up. I think it's back to normal. Is it back to normal? I think so 59, 50 because Corey. No, I think it's back to normal. I think it really is. Is it back? To normal, I think so 59, 59, 59, 50. Right, because Corey told us something different.
Speaker 2:Well then, the machine changed.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Let's assume it's back to normal.
Speaker 3:But if I do the ending and nothing happens, Then it's the machine's fault.
Speaker 2:It's the machine's fault.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, because it's now machine's fault. It's the machine's fault. Okay, well, because it's now 8.59. Right, and so that means we're working on the understanding that we have 50 seconds. Yes, okay. So thank you for participating. I think this was a very interesting topic.
Speaker 2:So do I, and Tom and Mark. Thank you for your emails.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep. Very good, who's in charge next week?
Speaker 2:Thank you for your emails. Yep, yep.
Speaker 5:Very good, who's in charge next week? Last week we called me David can be here. David, it's not. I think it may be you, rabbi.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's that was two weeks ago, wasn't I David? Yeah, two weeks ago.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 3:We'll figure it out. Okay Well, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Okay Well, you have been—please stay warm. It's going to get cold, really cold. It's already cold. So you've been listening to a show of faith here on KNTH 1070, the Answer Keep us in your prayers because you're going to be in.
Speaker 7:Find us at am1070theanswercom. Download our apps. Stream us 24-7. Knth and K277DE-FM Houston. Thank you.