MODERN VIEWS ON PRAYER

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27064, 12 June 1953, Page 12

MODERN VIEWS ON PRAYER

ADDRESS BY DEAN -SULLIVAN Some people regarded prayer as. a “spiritual grocery order” in which they sent up a list of requests to be delivered at a certain time to a certain place, 5 said the Dean of Christchurch (the Very Rev. Martin Sullivan) in the fourth of a series of six lunchtime talks in the Christchurch Cathedral yesterday, when he discussed the Lord’s Prayer. “If the order is not sent in time and they don’t get what they want they give up asking or change the grocer,” Dean Sullivan said. “Prayer is one of the forms of expression of our friendship and communion with God, just as conversation is a form of earthly friendship. “Every man comes to a point in his life when he is driven to his knees because he has nowhere else to go. That is prayer—resting in the faith of a Father who knows all our needs. There is comfort and strength in that kind of prayer,” he said. The Lord’s Prayer* was a model; it had brevity, no vain repetitions; it had order, putting first things first; and it was a universal prayer, said Dean Sullivan. He then explained each part of the prayer in its application to modern life. There was no reason why prayers for material things could not be offered, he said. “If you are worried about money, pray about it, but don’t expect God to give you your answer. He will give you His answer. Remember God feeds the sparrows, but does not put the crumbs into their beaks.

“Remember, too, we pray for ‘our daily bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer, and not for ‘daily cake,’ ” said Dean Sullivan. This part of the prayer put the curb on greed and dispelled anxiety, he added.

Dean Sullivan asked the congregation to say. a simple grace before meals. “There will be moments of embarrassment when you do and some will say you’ve ‘got religion,’ but risk that,” he said.

“Hatred, jealousy, spite, and revenge are spiritual cancers, which will destroy you in the end. Don’t live on those things. Forgive people, and bear in mind how much we all need forgiveness ourselves,” Dean Sullivan said.