Journey Back to Eden.pdf - St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church Chicago

A TIME TO VISIT ABRAHAM 49There are Coptic people who object, just as Catholics objected,to praying in a language which they do not understand. But theCoptic monks are insisting, and so apparently is the hierarchy ofthis Church, that understanding the words of a prayer is the leastimportant part of the meaning and the value of the prayer. Themonks remind me that “the Spirit intercedes for us with groans too deepfor words” (cf. Romans 8:26) and, therefore, when you are groaning,when you are aching, when you are too tired to participate intellectuallyin the psalmody, you are still praying. The Holy Spirit is unlockingthe depths of that which lies within. Sometimes when themind is fully engaged and thinking in its own terms and categories,it will not release the inward soul to discourse with God. Sometimesthe mind must work itself through its desire to control and come toa kind of humility, a relaxation of its powers, so that the Spirit mightwork at deeper currents than those which the mind employs.So I think of the words of the psalmist: “Like a weaned child onits mother’s lap, so is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2). Just as theweaned child doesn’t speak, and yet communes with its mother socompletely, we commune with our Mother Church. Our hearts areunited in prayer before God, not so much by our faculties of understandingand the employment of our intellects as by the submissionof our affects, our thirsts, and our appetites to our trust inGod, and to a good order among each other in charity.My language exchange with Hanee had to proceed, first of all,through a gift exchange. I understand now that no meaningful contactscan be established in Coptic society without the giving andreceiving of gifts. So I gave him rosary beads, and he gave me a littleprayer book, one that could easily fit in a vest pocket. It was abook of Arabic and Coptic prayers. Judging from its worn pages, Irealized that this must have been Hanee’s prayer book for many,many years. But he was delighted to give it to me. I said I couldhardly accept from him something so personal as his own dailyprayer book. He responded by saying that his prayers would besanctified if a monk would take the book he used for prayer and useit himself. Surely, he said, I would remember to pray for him whenI look at the pages and consider that they had been worn by his effortsto pray. He considers his prayers to have been failures untiland unless they are gathered into someone else’s prayers which aresucceeding.