508 - Simple Prayer & Can We Still Call God "Father?"

Simple Prayer
By John Dalrymple
Wilmington, Michael Glazier, 1984. 117 pp. $4.95.

Can We Still Call God "Father?"
By Celine Mangan, O.P.
Wilmington, Michael Glazier, 1984.$4.95.

Simple Prayer is not just another "how-to" book on praying; it has the ring of authenticity that comes from practicing prayer for a lifetime. Compared to other recent books about prayer, this description of contemplative prayer as relational is illuminating in its simplicity. Dalrymple, the "pastor of a parish in the slums of Glasgow," is gifted at translating the meaning of "poverty of spirit," "the dark night of the soul," and "the cloud of unknowing" into thought forms congenial to the modern spirit.

For Dalrymple, contemplative prayer is a way for Christians to learn the truth of the Gospel that "God is at the centre of the universe drawing all created beings to him, that all initiative is with him…." He is cognizant of the ways in which the busy life in consumer oriented cultures works against those who want to learn to be more receptive to God's love. The use of intimacy between friends as a metaphor for those who seek God in silence winsomely illustrates the point that in contemplative prayer Christians dare to know and be known. The author's skill at presenting the ups and downs of the spiritual journey ties in his mastery of the paradox that while prayer requires self-discipline it is not subject to the logic of human achievement.

Can We Still Call God "Father"? is an extended meditation on the Lord's Prayer written in response to "the frustrations of many women, faced as they are with male dominated churches." Without denying that "male dominated structures began very early in the churches history," Celine Mangan sees the task of the modern church as that of translating "the attitudes of Jesus into the social environment of our own times." As a professor of Semitic languages at University College, Dublin, she has written an unusually sensitive account of the encounters between Jesus the Rabbi and women.

Jesus' use of the intimate language of Abba. for the God of the Jewish tradition is explored as that relates to the use of the image of God as Father in the Old Testament. Noting the feminine and masculine characteristics

509 - Simple Prayer & Can We Still Call God "Father?"

associated with the tender care and compassion of God for the covenant people, Mangan points out that the image of God as Father is always linked to salvation. While several of the Old Testament references to God as Father are related to creation, the image is never associated only with patriarchal power or fatherhood. On the basis of this summary of the biblical meaning of God as Father each subsequent chapter in the book explores a phrase of the Lord's Prayer. There are many fine insights into the way Christians are called to take their stand with Jesus in confronting the power of evil in the world. Both books are scholarly but written in non-technical language accessible to clergy and laity.

Janet F. Fishburn
The Theological School, Drew University
Madison, N.J.