On Prayer
Why it is easier to pray for others than for oneself
To Dom Bede Griffiths January 8, 1936
(Lewis’s former pupil who had become a Benedictine priest)
Thank you for your prayers: you know mine too, little worth as they are. Have you found, or is it peculiar to me, that it is much easier to pray for others than for oneself. Doubtless because every return to one’s own situation involves action: or to speak more plainly, obedience. That appears to me more and more the whole business of life, the only road to love and peace—the cross and the crown in one.
(CL 2, 177)
On patriotic presumption in prayer
To His Brother, Warren Lewis September 10, 1939
In the Litany this morning* we had some extra petitions, one of which was “Prosper, oh Lord, our righteous cause.” Assuming that it was the work of the Bishop or someone higher up, when I met Bleiben in the porch, I ventured to protest against the audacity of informing God that our cause was righteous—a point on which He may have His own view. . . . I hope it’s quite like ours, of course: but you never know with Him.
*Lewis refers to the Anglican service at his local parish in the week after Britain declared war on Germany, September 1939. Bleiben is the church rector.
(CL 2, 272)
Practical advice on prayer
To Rhona Bodle January 3, 1948
I very much doubt if I’m good enough at prayer myself to advise others. First thing in the morning and last thing at night are good times but I don’t find that they are the best times for one’s main prayer. I prefer sometime in the early evening, before one has got sleepy—but of course it depends on how your day is mapped out.
“Grudging,” though a nuisance, need not depress us too much. It is the act of will (perhaps strongest where there is some disinclination to contend against) that God values, rather than the state of our emotions—the act of being what we give Him, the emotions what He gives us (usually, I think, indirectly through the state of our body, health etc., though there are direct kindlings from Him too. There are presents, to be given thanks for but never counted on).
Of course it is very difficult to keep God only before one for more than a few seconds. Our minds are in ruins before we bring them to Him and the rebuilding is gradual. It may help to practice concentration on other objects twice a week quite apart from one’s prayer: i.e. sit down looking at some physical object (say, a flower) and try for a few minutes to attend exclusively to it, quietly (never impatiently) rejecting the train of thought and imagination which keep starting up.
(CL 2, 826)
Magic vs. miracle
To Dom Bede Griffiths March 25, 1948
I think the essential difference between Magic and Miracle (leaving out the accidental difference that Magic is usually by means of evil spirits) is that Magic is held to work more or less automatically whereas Miracle is an answer to prayer. Now prayer is a species of request: and the essence of request, whether to God or to a human superior, is that it may or may not be granted, and the essence of faithful and humble Christian prayer is that the petitioner is willing that it should not be granted (“Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt”).
In Magic, on the other hand, I take it that the Magician expects the ceremonial to produce the result by a sort of necessity. Thus, even if there were a real “white” magic it would still be on a lower level than prayer, and not involving a personal relation and the affections but only a skill or technique. Of course the powers of Our Lord, and the possible powers of unfallen Adam, are in rather a different category from either. Magic would be the artificial and local recovery of what Adam enjoyed normally: which makes a difference. If Our Lord did His miracles quâ God and not quâ Man then the difference would be even greater. (Shakespeare’s control over events in The Tempest is different in kind from Prospero’s).
(CL 2, 841–842)
Prayer is not like medicine or magic
To Mary Van Deusen January 5, 1951
Whether any individual Christian who attempts Faith Healing is prompted by a genuine faith and charity or by spiritual pride is, I take it, a question we cannot decide. That is between God and him. Whether the cure occurs in any given case is clearly a question for the doctors. I am speaking now of healing by some act, such as anointing or laying on of hands. Praying for the sick—i.e. praying simply, without any overt act is unquestionably right and indeed we are commanded to pray for all men. And of course your prayers can do real good.
Needless to say, they don’t do it either as a medicine does or as magic is supposed to do: i.e. automatically. Prayer is Request—like asking your employer for a holiday or asking a girl to marry one. God is free to grant the request or not: and if He does you cannot prove scientifically that the thing would not have happened anyway. Just as the boss might (for all you know) have given you a holiday even if you hadn’t asked. (Cynical people of my sex will tell one that if a girl has determined to marry you, married you would have been whether you asked her or not!). Thus one can’t establish the efficacy of prayer by statistics as you might establish the connection between pure milk and fewer cases of tuberculosis. It remains a matter of faith and of God’s personal action: it would become a matter of demonstration only if it were impersonal or mechanical.
When I say “personal” I do not mean private or individual. All our prayers are united with Christ’s perpetual prayer and are part of the Church’s prayer. (In praying for people one dislikes I find it very helpful to remember that one is joining in His prayer for them.)
(CL 3, 81–82)
The advantages of liturgical prayer in worship over spontaneous prayer
To Mary Van Deusen April 1, 1952
The advantage of a fixed form of service is that we know what is coming. Ex tempore public prayer has this difficulty: we don’t know whether we can mentally join in it until we’ve heard it—it might be phony or heretical. We are therefore called upon to carry on a critical and a devotional activity at the same moment: two things hardly compatible. In a fixed form we ought to have “gone through the motions” before in our private prayers: the rigid form really sets our devotions free.
I also find the more rigid it is, the easier it is to keep one’s thoughts from straying. Also it prevents getting too completely eaten up by whatever happens to be the preoccupation of the moment (i.e. War, an election, or what not). The permanent shape of Christianity shows through. I don’t see how the ex tempore method can help becoming provincial and I think it has a great tendency to direct attention to the minister rather than to God.
(CL 3, 177–178)
Praying with words and praying without words
To Mary Van Deusen October 20, 1952
I think you are perfectly right to change your manner of prayer from time to time and I should suppose that all who pray seriously do thus change it. One’s needs and capacities change and also, for creatures like us, excellent prayers may “go dead” if we use them too long. Whether one should use written prayers composed by other people, or one’s own words, or wordless prayer, or in what proportion we should mix all three, seems entirely a question for each individual to answer from his own experience. I myself find prayers without words the best when I can manage it, but can do so only when least distracted and in the best spiritual and bodily health (or what I think best). But another person might find it quite otherwise.
(CL 3, 237)
The correspondent asked about “wordless prayer” in the previous letter and received this reply from Lewis:
To Mary Van Deusen November 25, 1952
No, by wordless prayer I didn’t mean the practice of the Presence of God. I meant the same mental act as in verbal prayer only without the words. The Practice of the Presence is a much higher activity. I don’t think it matters much whether an absolutely uninterrupted recollection of God’s presence for a whole lifetime is possible or not. A much more frequent and prolonged recollection than we have yet reached certainly is possible. Isn’t that enough to work on? A child learning to walk doesn’t need to know whether it will ever be able to walk 40 miles in a day: the important thing is that it can walk tomorrow a little further and more steadily than it did today.
As to the “state of the world” if we have time to hope and fear about it, we certainly have time to pray. I agree it is very hard to keep one’s eyes on God amid all the daily claims and problems. I think it wise, if possible, to move one’s main prayers from the last-thing-at-night position to some earlier time: give them a better chance to infiltrate one’s other thoughts.
(CL 3, 253)
Praying in times of distress and times of thanksgiving
To Mrs. D. Jessup November 17, 1952
Of course you will all remain in my prayers. I think it very wrong to pray for people while they are in distress and then not to continue praying, now with thanksgiving, when they are relieved.
Many people think their prayers are never answered because it is the answered ones that they forget. Like the others who find proof for a superstition by recording all the cases in which bad luck has followed a dinner with 13 at table and forget all the others where it hasn’t. God bless you. Write freely whenever you please.
(CL 3, 252)
On prayers to legendary saints
To Margaret Pollard May 22, 1954
(The correspondent apparently asked what happens when someone petitions a saint who is no longer recognized by the Church.)
Non-existent saints are a problem (for you! not for humdrum little Prots like me) which I never thought of. But after all non-existent Gods, if appealed to with a good heart, probably have done quite a lot to[o]: I mean, the real God, of His infinite courtesy, readdresses the letters to Himself and they are dealt with like the rest of the mail.
(CL 3, 478)
Guidelines for prayer
To F. Morgan Roberts July 31, 1954
I am certainly unfit to advise anyone else on the devotional life. My own rules are (1) To make sure that, wherever else they may be placed, the main prayers should not be put “last thing at night.” (2) To avoid introspection in prayer—I mean not to watch one’s own mind to see if it is in the right frame, but always to turn the attention outwards to God. (3) Never, never to try to generate an emotion by will power. (4) To pray without words when I am able, but to fall back on words when tired or otherwise below par. With renewed thanks. Perhaps you will sometimes pray for me?
(CL 3, 500)
Habits of prayer should not become rules of prayer
To Mary Willis Shelburne February 20, 1955
I don’t think we ought to try to keep up our normal prayers when we are ill and overtired. I would not say this to a beginner who still has the habit to form. But you are past that stage. One mustn’t make the Christian life into a punctilious system of law, like the Jewish [for] two reasons (1) It raises scruples when we don’t keep the routine (2) It raises presumption when we do. Nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been a total absence of all real charity and faith.
(CL 3, 567)
Prayers about other people’s behavior
To Mr. Beimer July 9, 1962
Prayers invoking other people’s behavior do not necessarily imply that God will infringe other people’s freedom. He can suggest or encourage action without compelling them. I myself have felt a curious nagging in my mind to go and see a particular person. I believe I could have resisted it, but I didn’t. And when I arrived on his doorstep his first words were “Oh—I was praying you might come today.”
(CL 3, 1357)