PRAYER | Contemplative Prayer

  Richard Foster 

Richard Foster's seminal book, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home, takes the reader through the various expressions of prayer with a number of anecdotes, Biblical references and life testimonies of some of the saints of old. His intimate literary style helps one grasp and understand the multi faceted landscape of this beautiful pursuit.

When he talks about the different types of prayer in Part 2 of the book he takes us ever deeper into that intimate dialogue with God. He reserves the most awe inspiring manifestation till last as he opens up the concept of Contemplative Prayer or Prayer that transcends the need for words. He helps with the understanding of it by saying:

Contemplative Prayer immerses us into the silence of God. How desperately we in the modern world need this wordless baptism! We have become, as the early Church father Clement of Alexandria says, like old shoes – all worn out except for the tongue. We live in a wordy world with our sophisticated high-tech telecommunication systems. We now have the dubious distinction of being able to communicate more and say less than any civilisation in history.

As a major part of the ministry of Ultimate Hope is to those that are in the eventide of life it was so encouraging to read the last paragraph of this important chapter and to find there, reference to the importance of this type of prayer for this slice of society. It cannot be overstated just how vital this is when words fail and where just being in the intimate presence of God, where He immerses us in His powerful silence and we can be seen for who we are, is more than enough. Richard Foster's last paragraph reads like this:

One final note of encouragement about Contemplative Prayer. One of its great values comes when we are at the sunset of life and our rational faculties begin to falter. A time may come when we are no longer able to utter words, but – and here is the glory – we are still able to pray, to pray without words. At the end of life, as at the beginning, we find ourselves, in the words of Gerhard Tersteegen, ‘looking at God, who is ever present, and letting Him look on us’.


Italics - Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home (1992, ISBN 0-06-062846-4) Pages 164 - 176

Roger - Manchester - UK