Concordia TheoBLOGical Seminary

Two weeks after Pope Benedict XVI’s pastoral visit to the US, both seminaries of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod placed pastoral candidates in Lutheran congregations across the US. Strangely, the concerns of those nights were of a quite different nature than one of the concerns addressed by the pope during his visit. The challenge our communion faced was having enough congregations for all those awaiting placement; while, the pope was asked to comment on the rising challenge that a shortage of priests poses to the Roman Catholic communion (even though many within the LCMS, too, are projecting a future pastoral shortage). Despite the differences, whether we face shortages or excesses, the pope’s response is both instructive and encouraging. For regardless of our circumstances, the need to perpetuate the ministry our Lord established remains constant. He said:

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send workers. He even admits that the workers are few in comparison with the abundance of the harvest (cf. Mt 9:37-38). Strange to say, I often think that prayer – the unum necessarium – is the one aspect of vocations work which we tend to forget or to undervalue!

Nor am I speaking only of prayer for vocations. Prayer itself, born in Catholic families, nurtured by programs of Christian formation, strengthened by the grace of the sacraments, is the first means by which we come to know the Lord’s will for our lives. To the extent that we teach young people to pray, and to pray well, we will be cooperating with God’s call. Programs, plans and projects have their place; but the discernment of a vocation is above all the fruit of an intimate dialogue between the Lord and his disciples. Young people, if they know how to pray, can be trusted to know what to do with God’s call.

The pope’s words are instructive because prayer indeed seems to be forgotten and undervalued in this way: we go through life without expectation that our Lord speaks to us through the living voice of the Gospel, that is through his Word–the person of Jesus Christ in sermon, hymn, and even in the personal and devotional reading of the Bible ouside of church. And when our Lord speaks, he tenderly invites us to speak back, to join him in dialog and conversation. He invites us to listen and lay bare our thoughts and feelings, our joys and fears. And in this invitation, he teaches us to pray–not by simply reciting a wish list, but by personally encountering him who is the Word in his written word, by laying aside our want to study the Bible as if it were something natural and, therefore, subject to the scientific method. No! He bids us suffer the reading of the Scriptures, that is, to engage them in such a way as to experience the living voice of our Savior, who is not silent but speaks and who is not deaf but hears.

And herein lies the pope’s encouragement: This is what the church does. It teaches us to pray when we’re not in church, and if it doesn’t it should. The church’s worship life is centered around the Word made flesh, crucified but arisen, the person of Jesus Christ. And in this setting the people of God learn by practice, by imitation how to read and pray. We learn that God does speak and he listens. We learn that God does give and he receives. We learn that God is alive, active, and providential. For the church is one large prayer–one large congregation of those who suffer, that is, experience God’s holy and divine things. And we learn that this suffering goes beyond Sunday morning in a life lived and nurtured by prayer, a life lived and nurtured by contact with the Word made flesh, crucified yet risen. And this builds a singularity of character, of mind and spirit, to the end that our Lord will continue to provide laborers for his harvest field.

If you would like to read the rest of Pope Benedict XVI’s response, you may read it here. It is the third question and response.