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PRAYERS FOR A LIFETIME
By
Karl Rahner. Albert Raffet, ed.
Crossroad, 1984. 175 pages, $12.50 cloth.
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This
book is a collection of prayers by the famous theologian, written during‑his
whole life. It appeared in German on the occasion of Rahner's eightieth
birthday, as his final gift to his millions of readers. K. Rahner, S.J. is
perhaps the most influential Catholic theologian of this century. His works
fill up many volumes. But science about God, he said, is not the most
important, "heart and grace are the only things which we cannot do without".
So, if his monumental theological books open an access to his mind, this
collection of prayers opens the door to his Christian and Jesuit heart.
Mystical experience is the soundest basis of theological reflection.
Publishing this work before his death, Rahner did not try to make other
people recite his own prayers; he offers and example and invites each reader
"to take to heart the one's own way, to say to God in one's own words: try
to formulate your own prayers.
The
collection contains 45 items and is divided in a Trinitarian way, to pray
"before God, with Christ, in the Holy Spirit. "There are texts never
published before, even the last prayer he wrote for the reunion' of
Christians. His first book, Encounters with Silence, provides some chapters.
There are many examples of Ignatian Spirituality, of course, emphasizing St.
Ignatius' insistence of "finding God in everything", what Rahner calls the
Incomprehensible Mystery ‑ because the Father can and must be experienced in
"the very middle of ordinary daily life. "The prayers were Composed during a
period of almost 50 years; it is therefore to be expected that Rahner's
spirituality changed or evolved, as his thought matured. It is interesting,
for example, to compare the "Prayer on the Eve of Ordination" or "God of
Law" with the more recent "Prayer for the Church"; here the great theologian
deplores clericalism and European ethnocentrism still too common in the
"church of poor sinners" with Christ wants to become a universal church. The
"spiritualizing" tendency of past time gives way to a socio‑political
consciencetixation, which was not the main dimension of Rahner's theology;
he was a deep metaphysical thinker.
This
is an interesting ‑ though perhaps unintended way of entering into contact
with Rahner's theology, without the technicalities of "professional"
language. Rahner's understood man, for example, as radically open to and
oriented towards God; this idea emerges in the prayers of the chapter "God
of My Life". His profound insights into the mystery of Incarnation shine
forth in the prayers at the of two sermons he preached in Advent, "Meeting
Jesus" and "God's Word as Personal Promise". Rahner made very clear a
theological principal: that love of God and love of neighbor are
inseparable; this so capital Christian tenet surfaces nicely in the passage
"Following Christ through Love of Neighbor". And so on.
People coming from other cultures or with different sensibilities may
occasionally feel difficulties in tuning in with Rahner heart; but this does
not impede that the book is very useful and refreshing and a great help to
pray more and better. He offers a great variety of images and names of God,
which invite the reader to invent his or her own, such as "pardoner",
"sustainer", "home of my loneliness", "the Silence Infinite", etc. When we
do not know what to say in prayer, or do not find out inspiration to pray, a
book like this may be a stimulus, not only for the beautiful things it says
but also thinking what a great man the author was who prayed this way.
(Ðồng Hành 11/ 1988)
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