The Prayer of St. Elias

Last updated on: July 20, 2016 at 12:28 pm by Guest Contributor

The Prayer of St. Elias 2016-07-20T12:28:18-04:00 Guest Contributor

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The preceding poem, though not in fact based on any extant legend, is nonetheless rooted in the Church’s rich tradition of Christological exegesis of the life and person of Elijah. Given the prophet’s particular importance in the Eastern rite, I have written it with consideration of the mystical mode at the heart of one of Eastern Christianity’s most prominent spiritual practices, the contemplative recitation of what is often known as the “Jesus prayer”: “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

The spirit behind this prayer is the expectation that a prayer we find in Scripture – in Christ’s story of the Pharisee and the Publican – can exceed its narrative context and spill over into every part of our lives; the words thus cease to be simply the prayer of a Publican learning to repent, and become something much more, the very breath we breath in and out as we lay each of our many varying moments in humility before God – what was contextual becomes the practiced attitude of a heart open to God.

In this same spirit, this poem wonders if the same kind of prayerful attitude might be learned out of the particular words of Elijah. At first glance, this attempt might seem a little theologically dodgy, since the words I have chosen convey in the original Scriptural context a passively suicidal inclination. However, I feel a “conversion” of such words is necessary for those of us who, though Christian, are nonetheless inclined toward suicide.

Just as there may be hope that, with a little nudging and disciplining and cajoling, one can convert lustful intentions into beacons that point one and draw one rather toward God (e. g. Song of Solomon, John Donne), so I write this in hope that our suicidal inclinations might be teased and drawn out until they become not in fact a wish for negative self-destruction, but rather a wish for death-to-self in the Pauline sense – my hope is that the “take my life” of the passively suicidal Elijah thus may become for us the “take my life” of the Suscipe prayer in Ignatius of Loyola’s Contemplation to Attain Love.

Karl Perrson is a regular contributor to The Inner Room here on Patheos Catholic. Steel Magnificat is honored to be able to share this poem of his with you on the occasion of the Byzantine Catholic simple holy day, the Feast of the Holy and Glorious Great Prophet Elijah

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