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Course 2 · Lesson 6.1

Private devotion and communal life

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 2 outline

Module 1: What Solitude Is and Is Not

  1. Solitude, isolation, and withdrawal from responsibility
  2. A deliberate approach to Christian life
  3. Solitude without superiority

Module 2: The Long Tradition

  1. Anthony and the first hermits
  2. The Desert Mothers and the sayings of the elders
  3. From the desert to the monastery: Pachomius, Basil and Benedict
  4. Hermits and anchorites in the later church

Module 3: The Church and the Solitary Christian

  1. The church as the body of Christ
  2. What Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians say requires a church
  3. Fellowship without a congregation

Module 4: Independence and Its Limits

  1. Reading Scripture for yourself
  2. The limits of private interpretation
  3. Testing teachers and online voices

Module 5: Accountability and Humility

  1. Spiritual pride
  2. Self-deception and confirmation bias
  3. Finding real accountability

Module 6: Building Your Framework

  1. Private devotion and communal life
  2. Drafting your framework
  3. Review and revision

All courses

Program / Course 2: The Solitary Christian in Depth / Lesson 6.1

What you will learn

  • Describe how private prayer and common worship relate in Scripture and in the three great traditions.
  • Explain what the Lord’s Prayer teaches about the plural character of Christian prayer.
  • Identify the specific gifts of private devotion and of communal worship.
  • Decide, in your own situation, how the two can be held together as honestly as possible.

The big idea

Private devotion and communal worship are not rivals. The Gospels show Jesus praying alone and also worshiping in the synagogue and the temple. The traditions agree that private prayer is real and valuable. They differ on how much it can stand alone. Catholics and Orthodox teach that personal prayer finds its home in the liturgy, and many Protestants teach that the gathered people of God are the normal place for the Word and sacraments. A solitary Christian’s task is to hold the two together as honestly as possible.

Key terms

Devotion
Dedication to God expressed in regular acts such as prayer, reading and meditation.
Liturgy
From a Greek word meaning public work. The ordered public worship of a church, especially the Eucharist.
Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office)
The church’s daily prayer at set hours, built mainly on the Psalms. Monks sing it in common, and lay people may pray it alone or in groups.
Corporate worship
Worship done together by a gathered community.
Sabbath
A day set apart for rest and worship. Christians keep it variously, mostly on Sunday, the day of the resurrection.
Priesthood of all believers
A Protestant teaching, based on texts such as 1 Peter 2:9, that every Christian has direct access to God and a share in the church’s priestly calling.

Background

Jesus teaches private prayer: “enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret” (Matthew 6:6). Yet in the next breath he teaches a prayer that begins, “Our Father which art in heaven” and asks for “our daily bread” and “our debts” to be forgiven (Matthew 6:9-12). Even the prayer said alone is a prayer in the plural. It places the one who prays within a family.

Jesus also “as his custom was” went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day (Luke 4:16). The first believers “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house” (Acts 2:46). When Peter was in prison, “prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him” (Acts 12:5). The Bible thus gives both patterns without ranking one over the other.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: What private devotion gives

Private prayer allows honesty, quiet and pace. You can pray in your own words, stay with a single verse, weep, complain or sit in silence. It also trains attention. Practices such as reading a psalm slowly, praying the Jesus Prayer, or keeping a notebook of Scripture all belong here. It is the place where much of one’s character is formed, since it is done with no audience.

Private devotion has risks as well. It can become self-centered, vague or sentimental, and it can lack the discipline of words that are not your own. The traditions have responded by giving private prayer a form, such as the psalms and the Lord’s Prayer.

Step 2: What communal worship gives

Common worship gives what you cannot give yourself: the shared reading of Scripture, preaching, the sacraments or ordinances, the singing of others, and the presence of people you did not choose. It trains you to pray with those you would not otherwise have picked, and to receive instead of producing. It places you within the long continuity of the church, praying words used for centuries. And it witnesses publicly that you belong to Christ.

It has its own risks: routine, performance, conformity and, sometimes, hurt. Honest worshippers know both its gifts and its dangers.

Step 3: How the traditions relate the two

Catholic teaching describes the liturgy as the summit and source of the church’s life (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10), and says that private prayer is necessary and must be rooted in it. The Liturgy of the Hours is meant to be prayed by lay people as well as clergy. Orthodox teaching sees the Divine Liturgy as the heart of the church’s life and expects private prayer to be in harmony with it. Orthodox prayer books for the home use the same psalms and prayers as the services. Alexander Schmemann, a twentieth-century Orthodox theologian, wrote on how the liturgy shapes the whole of life.

Protestants differ. Lutherans and Anglicans have ordered liturgies, and Reformed churches built worship around the preaching of the Word, psalms and sacraments. Baptists and other free churches stress spontaneous prayer and congregational participation. All stress the believer’s own devotion, often called the quiet time, and the importance of family worship at home.

Step 4: Holding them together when you rarely gather

If you do not attend a church regularly, you can still shape private prayer by the church’s forms. Pray the Lord’s Prayer daily and notice the word “our.” Pray the psalms in an order a church has used. Follow the church year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost. Use a lectionary, which assigns readings for each day. Pray for the church by name, for pastors, for the persecuted and for the sick. Read the creed aloud. Each of these links private prayer to common prayer, even when you are far away.

If you can attend occasionally, attend with a plan: choose a service of a tradition you respect, introduce yourself to a pastor or priest, and ask what it asks of visitors. Be honest about what you are seeking.

Step 5: Examine the reasons you do not gather

Be honest about why you gather rarely, if you do. There are good reasons: illness, distance, caring duties, work, hurt, or a considered conviction that a particular church teaches error. There are also weaker reasons: dislike of being known, impatience with imperfect people, enjoying one’s independence. Write your actual reasons and sort them. Where a reason can be addressed, such as an abuse that needs a different church, consider an alternative. Where it cannot, find a faithful substitute and keep it.

  1. Which of my prayers use words that are not my own?
  2. Whom do I pray for, and do they include the church as a whole?
  3. What do I receive from common worship that I cannot give myself?
  4. What do I find in private prayer that I do not find in common worship?
  5. What are my real reasons for gathering rarely, if I do?
  6. How does my private prayer follow the church year?

Examples

The plural prayer

A man who prays alone each evening says the Lord’s Prayer and slows down on each “our.” He names people who are at odds with him, and the sick, and the church in his town. His closet prayer is spoken with a crowd in mind.

A home office of prayer

A woman uses a prayer book with morning and evening psalms and readings. On Sundays, she follows an online or broadcast service of her tradition’s church and makes a telephone call to a friend who attends. She has not replaced the church, but she keeps its rhythm. (A constructed example.)

Drifting from the form

A man prays only in his own words when he feels like it, reads whatever he likes and attends nothing. After a few years his prayer has narrowed to his own concerns. A form and a community would have widened it. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

The liturgy is the center of the church’s worship, and private prayer is necessary but should be rooted in it. The Church obliges the faithful to take part in Sunday Mass. It also recommends personal prayer, the rosary, Scripture reading and the Liturgy of the Hours for private use.

Orthodox

The Divine Liturgy is the church’s central act. Private prayer is expected, often according to a rule given by a spiritual father, and should be in harmony with the church’s services. The ideal is that the Christian prays in the same spirit at home and in the church.

Protestant

Protestants emphasize both the individual’s relation to God and the gathered congregation. Many hold that regular attendance at worship is a normal duty of the Christian life (Hebrews 10:25). Some groups treat house churches and small gatherings as full forms of church. Traditions differ about how much to rely on set forms.

Scholarly

Historians of worship note that early Christians prayed at set hours at home and gathered on the first day of the week. Scholars of religion note that personal and communal practice have usually gone together, and that the proportion between them has varied by tradition and period.

Why it matters

How a solitary person relates private devotion to common worship shapes the whole shape of his or her faith. If the two are opposed, one will wither. If they are held together honestly, each supports the other. This lesson aims to make that question concrete and answerable, without pushing a particular answer on a reader who must decide for himself or herself.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Private prayer is the real thing and common worship is a formality.

Correction: Neither Scripture nor the traditions say so. Both are real. Each has its own gifts and temptations.

Misunderstanding: Common worship is the real thing and private prayer is optional.

Correction: Jesus teaches private prayer plainly. All three traditions treat it as essential.

Misunderstanding: Watching a service online is the same as attending.

Correction: Traditions differ. Most regard it as a real help to the homebound and a poor substitute for those able to attend, and sacramental traditions say it cannot replace the sacraments.

Misunderstanding: Using set prayers makes prayer less sincere.

Correction: The Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer are set prayers that Scripture commends. Many Christians find that fixed words carry them when their own fail.

Knowledge check

What does the plural wording of the Lord’s Prayer suggest about private prayer?

It suggests that even prayer in a closed room is made as part of a family: our Father, our bread, our debts. Private prayer is not a purely individual matter, and it links the person to others.

Name one gift of private devotion and one gift of communal worship.

Examples for private devotion: honesty, quiet, pace and attention. Examples for communal worship: shared Scripture and preaching, the sacraments or ordinances, the presence of other people and continuity with the church of past ages.

How do Catholic and Orthodox Christians relate private prayer to the liturgy?

They hold that private prayer is necessary but is rooted in and harmonized with the liturgy, which is the center of the church’s life. Home prayer uses the same psalms and prayers as the services.

How can a person who rarely gathers shape private prayer by the church?

By praying the Lord’s Prayer and the psalms, following the church year and a lectionary, praying for the church by name and saying the creed. These link the person to common prayer even when far away.

Think it through

  1. Which would you miss more, your private prayer or common worship, and what does that tell you?
  2. What would a faithful substitute for attendance look like in your life?
  3. What do you think it means that the Lord’s Prayer is in the plural?
  4. How do you sort good reasons from weak ones when you stay away?

Independent assignment

One week of prayer in the church’s form

For seven days, pray the Lord’s Prayer, one psalm and the Nicene Creed each morning. In your own notebook, keep a daily line on what you noticed. At the end, write 300 to 450 words describing what you gained from words that were not your own, and how it affected your sense of belonging to the wider church. Decide whether to keep any part of this practice.

Further study