The fabulously goggled Leah Libresco, who recently announced her conversion from atheism to Catholicism, has some words about how she's approaching prayer:
I like praying the Liturgy of the Hours because, at a bare minimum, it gives me something to say to God. Not just the words of the prayers but, basically, “I’m really grateful for prayer traditions because I’d pretty much suck at having to make all this up on my own.” Instead of just being grateful for language period, it’s kind of like being grateful for slang — the shared set of references that characterize a relationship or a community.
Jennifer Fulwiler addresses a related phenomenon when she speaks of praying the Liturgy of the Hours: here she realizes that, when the words don't apply to her life, that's a good thing, because she is praying as part of the Body of Christ. She says,
I found myself saying “we” and “our” more often than “I” and “mine.”
We all need the discipline of praying about things that are not immediately relevant to our needs. She says,
It all finally clicked. For the first time, I think I really understood the power of the Liturgy of the Hours as the universal prayer of the Church ...
As my heart swelled to think of the great drama playing out all over the world that morning of which I was only a small part, I thought back to my words at the beginning of the office — “But this Psalm doesn’t have anything to do with me!” — and realized that I had learned something critically important about prayer: It’s not all about me."
This is not to say that we can never pray about things that do concern us. But in my experience, the formal, selfless, ritualized prayer comes first, before there can be any depth of sincerity in individual prayer. We can, for instance, try to flog our hearts into a sensation of awe during the consecration, but we probably won't get anywhere. But if we simply humbly accept what is being offered, and obediently participate in the ritual of thanksgiving, that is what lays the groundwork for heartfelt awe and wonder.
So both kinds of prayer -- the formal, "ready-made" prayers that we participate in as an act of will, and the personal, immediate outpourings of our own soul -- both are necessary and pleasing to God. Praying only in own language is limiting and inadequate -- but so, I believe, is only ever praying in the formalized language of the Church. We ought to pray, at least some of the time, in our "native tongue." Leah has already discovered this:
When I think of immaterial things, I tend to think of Morality, which might not be that bad as a focus of prayer, even if I need to expand it out a little. The trouble is I also think of Math, and since it’s much easier to think about clearly and distinctly, I was running into a problem. I certainly wasn’t intending to pray to the Pythagorean theorem (which would make me a very strange sort of pagan), but I was drifting away from trying to talk to a Person and over to just thinking about immaterial ideas.
So, basically, instead of fighting these thoughts, I kept thinking about whatever math concepts popped into my mind. I thought about when I’d learned them, how exciting they were, and the way I got to share that joy with my friends. Then I basically reminded myself, “God is Truth, so he totally shares your delight in these things. In fact, he delights in your delight and would love to draw you further up and further in to contemplate and be changed by higher truths in math and in everything else.”
And that meant I was basically thinking about a person and a relationship again. In my own weird little way.
Brilliant. Leah is drawn to Truth; it's her native tongue. For others, it's goodness; for me, it's beauty. Pythagoras doesn't do much for me, but corn on the cob bubbling away in my blue enamel pot as the steam sifts through a shaft of evening light -- this is something I invariably hold up to God, so we can admire it together.
The saints all found different ways of praising God according to who they are, according to the native language He gave to them. And so we have St. Francis in his tattered robe, and also Josemaria Escriva with his precisely groomed hair; King David with his wild dancing, and Mother Theresa washing wounds. These orientations are not something to struggle against; they are languages which God gives us so we can sing love songs to Him.
Do you speak to God in your native tongue? Or do you hide your personality from Him? Do you compartmentalize your spiritual life from your daily experience? Or can you remember that everything that is good comes from God?
This is the main thing to remember when we pray, and when we live our daily lives: "He the source, the Ending He." Both root of idea and flower of expression. Here's Hopkins:
the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
This is how we become more like Christ: by allowing God to refine who we already are: by speaking to Him in our native tongue.
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Beautiful! Thank you.
Both kinds of prayer unite to illustrate the unity and the variety of the Body of Christ. Lovely post!
I’m definitely a truth kind of lady, but a homily I heard from Francis Cardinal George (Chicago) talked about how it isn’t the dark (lack of truth) that kills us, it’s the cold (lack of love). I’ve had to work much harder to not compartmentalize God into Truth (which I am naturally drawn toward) and Love (which gets confusing when we’re dealing with a whole culture that uses the poor as a political chip).
After holy communion, I love the silence. My favorite prayer is wordless. It is a current that flows back and forth. It is a succumbing to love, an intense gaze that is filled with oblation.
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Thank you for this!
Like you how weaved this together.
Oh my, I think I need to get out my music again and join the choir…
She’d probably really enjoy reading some Stanley Jaki or St. Robert Bellarmine.
This spoke to me on so many levels. Thanks for posting your thoughts on the matter. I think they get to the heart of the matter quite well.
When I returned to the church after some twenty years, and went to confession: I was ignorant of the form, to follow in confession. However, somewhat prompted by a few questions; nonetheless, I followed through what seemed natural enough. My point is rather simple. It has to do with the ordering matters in life. An appropriate analogy might be music. Picking up an instrument and hammering away at say, strings on a guitar, ignorant of all the theory, and knowledge, concerning music: music is made. Maybe it is tradition, that passes from one to another, a song, and a technique to refine the ignorance of the instrument, and the theory to guide further interests. It may be academia that does it for others. Still, the music is made first. The notation follows from it. Without the music being made: there is little in the way of notation, for anyone to describe anything. Of course, some of us get sheet music, and sight-reading instructions, and the works of others, before we really hammer out our works on the strings; still, the process begins with tone, not notes, but the movement of air to the ear drums. The question I liked is the part about our own native tongue, and what do we show / hide from God, as we pray. At forty-two, I can hardly be only what I was taught by others: I have to be as well a bit of what I figured out on my own.
My favorite part of the Math related prayer high-jinx post was the way she used the half-remembered St. Patrick’s Breastplate as a template for her own version.
“They are languages which God gives us so we can sing love songs to Him.” Truly beautiful, Simcha.
I really needed to hear this. I often pray with my own words and sometimes don’t understand the value of praying prayers and Bible passages that don’t have anything to do with me. Thank you Simcha and Jen for enlightening me and helping to be more others-centered.
“They are languages which God gives us so we can sing love songs to Him” I love this line too! It reminded me of a song I love…
Here I am Lord,
At Your feet.
With no words to express,
The way that I feel.
Let me be a love song to You
Holy and pure, pleasing and true
Let me be a life song to You
A melody of worship in all that I do
Oh Lord
Wonderful….tied in beautifully with Leah’s words…thanks for posting.
Beautiful, beautiful post. Thanks.
Not sure I would call combing one’s hair along a part in a style that takes about half a minute to finish “precisely groomed hair”, but ok. :)
Beautiful. As a retired Actuary-mathematician, I am greatly amused by praying the Pythagorean theorem (A-sguared + B-squared = C-squared, for a Right Triangle).
For me, rote prayers include a Morning Offering, those in the Mass each day and a “Glory Be to the Father . . .” before going to sleep. Spontaneous prayers come from appreciation of the beauty of His creation, especially on clear nights when Moon, planets and stars are visible. I think this is related to Psalm 8, verses 4-6. Also, my BW of 57 years is a a cause of praise.
TeaPot562
Beautiful, Morning Prayer before mass generally leads me to a greater awareness of my Jesus’ love for me, the union He desires with me, unworthy and sinful as I am. At other times I am so easily distracted, thoughts shooting out in all directions, I can only conclude that praying the Liturgy of the Hours helps to focus me spiritually.
I like praying some decades of the rosary in another language I speak. It takes a little more concentration, and keeps me focused on the meaning of the words. So far I can only do it in one other language, but I have been thinking of learning the prayers in a couple of others to round it out.
Praying in a HISTORICALLY LITERATE BIBLICAL LANGUAGE HAS ITS BEAUTIES…. PRAYING THE PSALMS IN THE ORIGINAL HEBREW (AND, IN A CASE OR TWO) ARAMAIC, IS IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, CERTAINLY MUCH more ACCURATE THAN BEING DICTATED TO THAT I must PRAY SAID PSALMS IN SOME other NON-ORIGINAL LANGUAGE….........
Great post, Simcha. I pray that Leah will have many years of sharing her converting brilliance with the world. I am hardly a mathematician but I thrive on order I see in the world. I am one who sees God’s work in the Periodic Table.
@ Historian…what you say may be true, but we must be award of the potential for elitism in that sort of thought. Reading in Aramaic is not for everyone, for a great many reasons. Heck READING is not for everyone. An approved translation of scripture will be sufficient for most people. One must leave room for God to speak.
Wow. What a lovely post. My native language is definitely beauty and I think I try to hide it more often than not.
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