Jen at Conversion Diary is going to blog the "Our Father," word by word. I bet she comes up with some good stuff, though I hope she takes my combox advice to use the Latin as her guide — really, doesn't it make more sense to have one post entitled "Sanctificetur (May it be hallowed)" rather than one entitled "Hallowed" and another titled "Be"?
One commenter "Kimberlie" mentioned something that I wanted to address.
As a convert to Catholicism, I dealt with lot’s of criticisms about “rote prayer.”
…It’s good and well to have private prayer where we open our hearts to the Lord and pour out to Him. But, just because I don’t squinch up my eyes, throw up my hands, and make a long public extemporaneous prayer and choose instead to say the “Our Father,” that my prayer is somehow less valid. Jesus gave those words to the disciples after all.
We Catholics and our rote prayers. I frequently offer grace before meals, or hear it offered, among non-Catholic friends.
When I speak, I always use the Catholic formula Bless us O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen. (Since I started teaching their kids Latin, I've been known to say the Benedic, Domine nos….)
And, of course, our friends who are followers of Christ but who are not Catholics don't lead mealtime graces with a formula, but according to their tradition always offer some brief, appropriate, gracious, spontaneous thanksgiving. So I have had many opportunities to contemplate the "roteness" of the Catholic way of doing things. I find that mealtime graces offer me a convenient way of thinking about it.
Have you ever been at a meal or a Bible study or a commencement or something like that — among Protestants will do, but really anywhere — where one person stood up and offered a prayer on behalf of the group?
You know, the “Dear Lord, we thank you for gathering us all here today. Thank you for the food we are about to eat and for the fellowship of our friends. We ask that you bless our work and all we do. Amen.”
So, what did you do? Did you plug your ears and silently pray your own personal prayer during that time? Probably not, though perhaps you may have quietly added some little personalization of your own. More likely if you were among fellow believers you listened respectfully to the speaker and took his words to heart, as long as he didn’t say anything outrageous. You internally affirmed what he was saying, or as much of it as you could with honesty, and with your “Amen,” you made his words your own, and meant them.
This is what we are doing, I think, when we repeat the prayers of the Church. We are allowing ourselves to be led in prayer, listening to and submitting to someone else’s words — for no other reason than because we are a group, and our group has a leader.
When we repeat the words, we are trying to take them in, make them our own, and mean what they say. What I am doing when I begin with "Bless us O Lord, and these Thy gifts…" is not all that different in form from the small effort I make, an effort of attention and assent, when I listen to my friends' mealtime prayers and add my "Amen" to theirs.
And how much more so should we conform our thoughts to the prayer led by Christ himself.
bearing blog 