Brennan Manning

I normally focus on people’s virtues in these prayer posts, but I will make an exception here. The person who generated today’s prayer leaves me no other choice. I’ll let Brennan Manning (1931-2013) introduce himself to you, “I’ve been a priest, then an ex-priest—husband, then ex-husband. Amazed crowds one night and lied to friends the next. Drunk for years, sober for a season, then drunk again… I’ve been John the Beloved, Peter the coward, and Thomas the doubter, all before the waitress brought the check. I’ve shattered every one of the Ten Commandments six times Tuesday. And if you believe that last sentence was for dramatic effect, it wasn’t.” Richard Francis Xavier Manning became a Franciscan priest, adopting the name Brennan to model himself after a medieval saint. He left the priesthood to marry Roslyn, but they divorced twenty years later. His chronic lying served to cover his problem drinking. His most popular book, Ragamuffin Gospel, was written “for the bedraggled, beat up and burned out.” Ragamuffin was his word for the untidy, messy people with whom Jesus associated. Jesus repeatedly locked horns with the religious establishment over the company he kept. He ate with reviled tax collectors and associated with women of ill repute. Jesus loves ragamuffin people. At the book’s end, Brennan presumes to speak for God, “I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty, and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now, I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are and not as you should be. Because you’re never going to be as you should be.” Brennan wrote prayers for morning and evening use. His reference to Abba draws upon the Aramaic word Jesus used for God that most nearly translates to “Papa” or “daddy” in our day: