Dr Patrick Goujon SJ
Precarious words: the paradoxical power of prayer
Abstract: Far from being a magical power where words do things, Christian prayer can be understood in the light of the parables of the seed that dies in the Gospel of John. ‘Truly I tell you, unless a grain falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds’. Prayer is precarious, as its etymology suggests: precarious, from the Latin precari, to pray. If Christian prayer is shaped by the Eucharistic life of Jesus Christ, doesn't this mean that our prayer comes from a life that is ready to be broken and shared so that our words can nourish our lives and the lives of others? What is the Easter journey of Christian prayer? We will answer this question by reflecting on the nature of language and using examples from the Christian spiritual tradition and contemporary literature.
Patrick Goujon graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure in French Literature. He has a doctorate in Theology (Centre Sèvres – Jesuit Faculties of Theology and Philosophy, Paris) and in History (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris), and a habilitation in French Literature (Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle). He is a Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall/Professor at Facultés Loyola Paris and Associate Member at Centre d’Etudes en Sciences Sociales du Religieux – EHESS). He is also on the editorial board of Etudes and Recherches de Science Religieuse.