Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings:

5. A Practical Way to Pray (1535)

33 5 A Practical Way to Pray (1535) This document represents Luther’s mature catechetical piety.Written late in his career, it shows his long-standing attention to the practical concerns of the Christian life. Luther wanted to reform how the church prays. His response to the earnest question of Peter Beskendorf, his barber, shows how Luther viewed this kind of practical Reformation—believers living at the nexus of the Word of God, catechesis, and prayer.As a confessor of the faith, Luther recommends that believers pray the chief articles of the church’s confession as found in the catechism. In other words, Luther adapts the ancient practice of lectio divina as a way to pray the catechism,“the Bible for the Laity.”1 Dear Master Peter: I will tell you as best I can what I do personally when I pray. May our dear Lord grant to you and to everybody to do it better than I! Amen. First, when I feel that I have become cool and joyless in prayer because of other tasks or thoughts (for the flesh and the devil always impede and obstruct prayer), I take my Book of Psalms, hurry to my room, or, if it be the day and hour for it, to the church where a congregation is assembled and, as time permits, I say quietly to myself and wordfor -word the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and, if I have time, some words of Christ or of Paul, or some Psalms, just as a child might do. 1.This translation is based on the German text, Eine einfältige Weise zu beten für einen guten Freund,in WA 38:(351) 358–375, and is an abbreviate revision of Carl J. Schindler’s 1968 “A Simple Way to Pray” in LW 43. It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last at night. Guard yourself carefully against those false, deluding ideas which tell you, “Wait a little while. I will pray in an hour; first I must attend to this or that.” Such thoughts get you away from prayer into other affairs which so hold your attention and involve you that nothing comes of prayer for that day. It may well be that you may have some tasks which are as good as or better than prayer, especially in an emergency. There is a saying ascribed to St. Jerome that everything a believer does is prayer2 and a proverb,“The one who works faithfully prays twice.” This can be said because believers fear and honor God in their work and remember the commandment not to wrong anyone, or to try to steal, defraud, or cheat. Such thoughts and such faith undoubtedly transform their work into prayer and a sacrifice of praise. However, it is also true that a work done without faith is an outright curse—and so whoever works faithlessly, curses twice. While such people strive, their thoughts are occupied with a neglect of God and violation of Divine law, how to take advantage of neighbors,how to steal from them and defraud them.What else can such thoughts be but out and out curses against God and humankind, which make such work and effort a double curse,by which people curse themselves. In the end they are 2. Probably Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, book 4 under Matthew 25:11. MPL 26, 186. 34 Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings beggars and bunglers. It is of such continual prayer that Christ says in Luke 11,“Pray without ceasing,”3 because one must unceasingly guard against sin and wrong-doing, something one cannot do unless one fears God and keeps his commandment in mind, as Psalm 1[:1, 2] says,“Blessed is he who meditates upon his law day and night.” Yet we must be careful not to break the habit of true prayer and imagine other works to be necessary which, after all, are nothing of the kind.Thus at the end we become lax and lazy, cool and listless toward prayer.The devil that oppresses us is not lazy or careless, and our flesh is too ready and eager to sin and is disinclined to the spirit of prayer. When your heart has been warmed by such recitation to yourself [of the Ten Commandments, the words of Christ, etc.] and is intent upon the matter, kneel or stand with your hands folded and your eyes toward heaven and speak or...