John Calvin’s Teachings on Prayer and the Practice of Centering Prayer

by J. David Muyskens

The Reformed branch of Christianity looks to John Calvin as their spiritual father.  It was his book called the Institutes that defined the position of Christians in the Reformation who called themselves reformed in theology and presbyterian in form of church government.

Many of us who have grown up in the Calvinist tradition learned  prayer as speaking to God our praise, thanksgiving, confession, intercessions and supplications.  With an emphasis on the Sovereignty of God our prayer was addressed to a powerful Ruler on high.  Yet the founder of our branch of Christianity taught a prayer that is a heartfelt and intimate communion.

In his Institutes Calvin calls prayer “the chief exercise of faith…by which we daily receive God’s benefits.”  (Institutes III, title of chapter 20)  Daily we receive the gifts of God.  Prayer is response to grace, receiving what God gives us, responding with gratitude and the petitions that grow out of that gratitude.  It is the response the Holy Spirit enables us to make to God. 

This faith the Holy Spirit produces in us enables us to keep the two great commandments:  love God and love your neighbor.   The result is pietas, an attitude of reverence and love for God, and caritas, love of neighbor.  We respond to God with grata pietas, “thankful piety,” because God is the fountain of goodness, like a generous father to us.  And we give love to others out of that same gratitude.  The goal of Calvin’s Institutes is to move us to practice piety, a heartfelt attitude of living for God.

Through prayer we receive the gift of communion with God.  When we open ourselves to God in prayer it is revealed to us that God is “wholly present to us.”  (Institutes III, XX, 2)  In prayer we are invited to pour out to God all the desires, joys, sighs and thoughts of our hearts.  To enter such prayer, said Calvin, we are to “descend into the innermost recesses of our hearts and from that place, not from the throat and tongue, call God.”  (Calvin’s Catechism of 1538, 23)  The tongue does, with words, contribute to prayer.  Words can help keep our minds on God.  They can also help keep us intent upon God’s glory and goodness.  But the intent of the heart is what is important.  “True prayer ought to be nothing else but a pure affection of our heart as it is about to draw near to God…to pour out our prayers.”  (Calvin’s Catechism of 1538, 23) The goal of prayer is “that our hearts may be aroused and borne to God.”  (Institutes III, XX, 29)

Calvin says that our prayer flows from the “sweetness of love.”  (Institutes III, XX, 28)   His word translated “sweetness” is ducedo.  It is a word prominent in the mystics such as Bernard of Clairvaux who liked to expound on The Song of Songs because he found our relationship with Christ to be like the love the most intimate of lovers have for one another.  Calvin says that receiving the compassion of God we are drawn into God’s “bosom.”  (Institutes III, XX, 5)  The intimacy of the relationship is like the child being cuddled at the breast of the parent.  We are not standing at some distant place of alienation trying to call out to God across a great distance.  We are embraced by loving arms.  We pour out our soul as we are held close to the heart of God.

Calvin’s first rule for prayer is that our minds and hearts be properly prepared to enter conversation with God.  We are invited into a wonderfully intimate relationship, “to unburden our cares into God’s bosom.”  (Institutes III, XX, 5) This means letting go of cares and thoughts that take us away from “pure contemplation of God.”  (Institutes III, XX, 4)  Our minds are to rise above such thoughts.  “We are to rid ourselves of all alien and outside cares, by which the mind, itself a wanderer, is borne about hither and thither, drawn away from heaven, and pressed down to earth…but (instead) rise to a purity worthy of God.”  (Institutes III, XX, 4)

As one who practices Centering Prayer, I am intrigued by Calvin’s first rule of prayer.  Calvin wants us to be “rid” of “all alien and outside cares, by which the mind, itself a wanderer, is borne about hither and thither.”  (Institutes III, XX, 4)  This is a problem that Centering Prayer expressly addresses.  In Centering Prayer one lets go of thoughts with the use of a sacred word as a symbol of one’s intention to consent to the presence and action of God.  One lets go of the thoughts and spends the time of the Centering Prayer period in openness to the gift of communion with God.  The method provides a way of letting go of attractions and attachments that become obstacles in our prayer.  Calvin’s first rule deals with our need to be silent in the presence of God.  Being “rid” of thoughts that draw us away from God is needed.  I take it from Calvin’s commentary on Philippians 4:6 that his method was to cast our cares upon God.  In Calvin’s commentary on Philippians he said that our cares are unloaded by casting them upon God’s fatherly care for us.  As in Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden on the Lord,” and in I Peter 5:7 “Cast all you anxiety upon him,” so the Philippians were exhorted to bring requests to God “by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.”  Calvin commented, “For we are not made of iron, so as to be unshaken by temptations.  But our consolation, our relief, is to deposit, or (to speak more correctly) to unload into the bosom of God everything that harasses us.”  (Calvin’s Commentary on Philippians 4:6)  With its gentle return to the sacred word whenever one is thinking about something Centering Prayer gives us a method of following Calvin’s first rule of prayer. 

Calvin’s second rule for prayer is to come to God with “sincere affection of heart.”  Calvin wrote, “Prayer itself is properly an emotion of the heart within, which is poured out and laid open before God, the searcher of hearts.”  (Cf. Rom. 8:27)  “The Heavenly Teacher, when he willed to lay down the best rule for prayer, bade us enter into our bedroom and there, with door closed, pray to our Father in secret.  (Matt. 6:6)  By these words, as I understand them, he taught us to seek a retreat that would help us to descend into our heart with our whole thought and enter deeply within.  He promises that God, whose temples our bodies ought to be, will be near to us in the affections of our hearts.”  (Cf. II Cor. 6:16)    (Institutes III, XX, 29)  Prayer is “an emotion of the heart within, which is poured out and laid open before God, the searcher of hearts.”  (Institutes III, XX, 29)  From that place at the core of our being we express our love for God.  We make the offering of ourselves expressed in Calvin’s motto:  “Unto you, Lord, I offer my heart promptly and sincerely.”  This sincere opening of the heart to God is expressed in the intention of Centering Prayer to consent to God’s presence and action within.

The third rule for prayer is to come with humility depending on the grace of God.  We come with an attitude of submission.  With humble and sincere confession of guilt we trust in the mercy of God.  We realize that the gift of prayer is ours only because God is gracious.  By the grace of God we come with “a pure conscience” resting in God’s forgiveness not in our merit.  (Institutes III, XX, 10)  In Centering Prayer it is not our effort that brings us into communion with God but our total reliance on the gift of the divine Presence.

The fourth rule is that we pray with confident hope.  We pray with “a sure hope that our prayer will be answered.”  We come with faith because God’s “kindness and gentle dealing have become known—indeed, have been intimately revealed.”  (Institutes III, XX, 11)  We come to God in Christ who is our advocate, mediator and guide.  The risen Christ is our intercessor.  (Institutes III, XX, 17)  We are to pray “‘in the Spirit with watchfulness and perseverance.”  (Institutes III, XX, 12) 

Calvin taught that we are to pray “continuously.”  We should lift our hearts to God at all times and pray without ceasing.  (Institutes III, XX, 28)  Yet, it is necessary, because of our weakness, for us to set certain hours for prayer. “These are:  when we arise in the morning, before we begin daily work, when we sit down to a meal, when by God’s blessing we have eaten, when we are getting ready to retire.”  (Institutes III, XX, 50)  By spending the time at “certain hours” as Calvin recommends we come into a closer relationship with God.  The result is an awareness of God in every moment.

Centering Prayer is a way of receiving the gift of an intimate relationship with God.  The practice of Centering Prayer can open us to a loving communion with God, which Calvin taught is God’s gift to us.  As Calvin said, the fruit of the practice of prayer is “that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve God.”  (Institutes III, XX, 3).