Recollected Prayer

Part 1: What is Recollected Prayer?

As the apostle Paul instructs us, we are to be people who “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). While our participation in the Sunday liturgy and daily routines like Morning and Evening Prayer are important pillars in our overall life of prayer, they do not, in and of themselves, fulfill this Pauline charge.What would it look like, after all, to be people who “pray without ceasing”?

This question brings us to what the church has historically termed “recollected prayer.” As defined by Eugene Peterson, “recollected prayer” is the “random, unscheduled, sometimes willed and other times spontaneous recollections of what we are saying and/or doing in answer to God,” which “extends and disseminates our praying life into all the details of our dailiness” (Under the Unpredictable Plant, 105-106).

Put simply, recollected prayer involves brief pauses or intentional moments throughout the day, amidst our regular responsibilities and activities, to pray or remember God. This type of prayer is not detached from but rather anchored in our corporate worship and prayer, as we seek to bring those prayers and others to bear on all the moments of our lived experience.

Church history provides us with a huge variety of opportunities to practice “remembering” God throughout our daily life. One of the most famous such guides to recollected prayer is that of the seventeenth-century French monk Brother Lawrence, who details his efforts to attain “an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God” (The Practice of the Presence of God, 36).

For instance, Brother Lawrence recommends pausing at various points during the day to lift one’s heart to God through repeating a simple prayer: “My God, here I am all devoted to thee. Lord, make me according to Thy heart” (The Practice of the Presence of God, 41). This practice is also common with the Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. Or it could be done with any portion of Scripture. Hesychastic Prayer (or “Breathing Prayer”) would also fall into this category, where we say one simple phrase as we breathe in and one as we breathe out.

Another way to practice recollected prayer is to create habits of offering brief prayers to God, recalling his presence with us, surrounding certain activities: “Make it your study, before taking up any task, to look to God, be it only for a moment, as also when you are engaged thereon, and lastly when you have performed the same” (The Practice of the Presence of God, pp. 79-80). This can also involve using a certain task to remind us of certain aspects of God. So brushing our teeth might remind us that we are washed “whiter than snow” or cause us to pray for further purification.

For your reflection: What prevents you from “praying without ceasing”?

Part 2: Recollected Prayer through Poetry

In the book Every Moment Holy, Douglas Kaine McKelvey takes many ordinary moments and turns them into liturgical and poetic prayers. There is one section in particular that focuses on practicing the presence of God through attentiveness toward Creation.

Upon Tasting a Pleasurable Food:
For the infinite variety of your creative expression,
I praise you, O God. You have made
Even the necessary act of eating
A nurturing comfort and 
A perpetual delight

Upon Hearing Birdsong:
You draw praise
From the frailest of things.
So also draw praise
From me.

Upon Observing a Tree Swaying in the Wind:
O Spirit of God
Who moves in
Mystery unseen,
So move now
In my heart. 

Writing your own poetry can be a form of Recollected Prayer. Begin by taking a few minutes to observe what is going on around you outside, whether it be nature, people, houses, traffic… anything is fair game! As you observe these things, begin considering how they could be used for prayer. What do they remind you of in Scripture? How might God be speaking or revealing Himself through them?

Now, pick one of the things that you observed and try writing your own brief prayer on the model of those we looked at in Every Moment Holy.

Sources:

• Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God, with Spiritual Maxims. Spire, 1967.

• Frances de Sales. Introduction to the Devout Life. Image, 2003.

• McKelvey, Douglas. Every Moment Holy. Rabbit Room, 2017.

• Peterson, Eugene. Under the Unpredictable Plant. Eerdmans, 1992.