We are blessed with the gift of Robbins Chapel. In its architecture and art our chapel beautifully testifies to the ways in which we are called to a life that transcends ourselves, that is bound up with God’s divine will and work, and that holds a place in an old, old story that came before us and will continue long after each one of us. In a variety of ways Robbins Chapel also expresses the continuity of our learning and devotion to God. Even without our presence together in prayer, the chapel proclaims what we believe and hold important as a matter of good and humane education as well as well-grounded moral and spiritual formation.
And yet, there is something disconsolate about an empty chapel,isn’t there? However right and widely accepted may be the lessons taught by Robbins Chapel’s architecture and art, it is above all a sacred space in which we are to gather and come forth renewed for study, play, friendship, and life.
Would you, then, please receive my encouragement to join me in regular prayer in Robbins Chapel? For fifteen brief minutes of quiet reflection, scripture reading, and spoken prayer, we gather every weekday at 9 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Almost every morning, I am joined by a handful of faculty members who have committed themselves to pray with and on behalf of the college. Our own lives are being reshaped because of our commitment to pray with one another, and I believe that you will find much the same to be true for yourselves as well. If you are not in class at 9 a.m., I hope that you will join me and the faculty, find yourselves encouraged by your prayerfulness together with us, and look all the more expectantly for God’s direction in our lives and our college.
Similarly, at 10 p.m. each weekday I faithfully go into the chapel to express with you the solidarity we share in our need and hope for God. By showing up to pray we profess to one another and to the world—but even more so to the Lord whose glory we show—that we are not sufficient unto ourselves and that we trust God to supply, most evidently through Jesus Christ, what we lack. Herein, and certainly in the practice of regular corporate prayer, are found the touchstones by which the faithful throughout the ages have stayed the course in their quest to find and follow God.
I hope to see you soon in Robbins Chapel and elsewhere in and around Brooks College.
