The Marriage of Prayer and Joy

“Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing.”

I Thessalonians v. 16. 17.

JOY and prayer — these are strange allies — strange elements for perpetual union. To rejoice evermore and to pray without ceasing — are not these contradictory acts? Are not joy and prayer opposite things? Is not joy a sense of fulness; is not prayer a sense of want? How can these both go on for ever? Must not the advent of perfect joy be the death of prayer? No, not if you speak of Christ’s joy. Christ’s joy is love — fulness of love. But what is fulness of love but fulness of want? What is my love for you but my want of you, my need of you, my insufficiency with.- out you! All love is a great prayer. Its very joy is the joy of insufficiency. Love is the cry of my soul for a companion soul. Love is the declaration that I am unsatisfied with myself. I do not say J/^satisfied; I need not be that. What I feel is a sense of incompleteness. The creation of my heart is unfinished, and I crave its finishing. When I clasp the hand of a friend I experience a joy; but the joy is also a want — a pain. In that moment I am coming out from myself, abandoning myself. I am confessing that to dwell within myself is to be in a land of famine, to feed upon the husks. The deeper ray love is, the deeper is my sense of want, my need of another. I am least content with myself when my joy is most full.

Let then, O Lord, my joy and my prayer be knit in eternal union; may both be among life’s unceasing things! May I “rejoice evermore,” and yet “pray without ceasing;” may nothing ever break the marriage tie! I should not like to have an eternal joy which excluded eternal prayer. I thank Thee that Thou hast provided an eternal joy which is compatible with eternal prayer. Let me enter into this joy of my Lord! Give me that Divine joy called love — that joy which is a hunger of the heart. T have read that on the great day of the world’s feast Thou didst stand in the midst and cry, ‘’I thirst!’* That was both Thy fulness and Thy want. The fulness of love is the heart’s deepest hunger. Thine was the fulness of love; Thine was the heart’s deepest hunger; Thy joy made Thy prayer. Let me enter into Thy joy; let me enter into Thy prayer! When my joy shall be Divine, my want shall be Divine too. I shall thirst most when I reach Thy glory, for Thy glory is love. I shall hunger most when I reach Thy fulness, for Thy fulness is love. I shall pray most when I reach Thy joy, for Thy joy is love. I shall be least self-satisfied when I am nearest to Thy sun, for Thy sun is love. When I can rejoice for evermore I shall pray without ceasing.