St John Chrysostom on prayer

Here is an interesting passage on prayer from St John Chrysostom’s commentary on the Book of Psalms. The first part has an uncannily contemporary feel to it.

Typically, when we converse with people of a class above us, we make sure that our appearance and gait and attire are as they should be and dialogue with them accordingly. When we approach God, by contrast, we yawn, scratch ourselves, look this way and that, pay little attention, loll on the ground, do the shopping.

It sounds like many an evangelical prayer meeting I have found myself attending over the years! (All except the shopping – and I suspect even that happens now that so much worship has gone online as a result of the pandemic.)

He goes on in a more positive way to describe how we should pray:

If on the contrary we were to approach him with due reverence and prepare ourselves to converse with him as God, then we would know even before receiving what we asked how much benefit we gain. . . . [In receiving prayer] God, after all, looks not for beauty of utterance or turn of phrase but for freshness of spirit; even if we say what just comes into our mind, we go away with our entreaties successful. . . . Often we do not even need a voice. I mean, even if you speak in your heart and call on him as you should, he will readily incline toward you even then. . . . when you come, he stands listening, even if it is lunchtime, even if dinnertime, even if the worst of times, even if in the marketplace, even if on a journey, even if at sea, even if inside the courtroom before a judge, and you call on him, there is no obstacle to his yielding to your entreaty as long as you call on him as you should . . . being of sober mind and contrite spirit, approaching him in a flood of tears, seeking nothing of this life, longing for things to come, making petition for spiritual goods, not calling down curses on our enemies, bearing no grudges, banishing all disquiet from the soul, making our approach with heart broken, being humble, practicing great meekness, directing our tongues to good report, abstaining from any wicked enterprise, having nothing in common with the common enemy of the world – I mean the devil, of course. (Commentary on the Psalms 4.2–3)