The Rote Way to Pray

My attempt to embrace the Liturgy of the hours was a semi-fail.  It's a bit like deciding to run an Iron Man with the ability of a jazzercise participant.  Full of goodness and fertile ground for spiritual growth, but a lot to take on in the summer with kids home and unpredictable schedules.  So I learned and saw the benefit, but then gave myself the freedom to claim "defeat" and find a process more suitable for my life, right now. 

Specifically carving out intentional quiet time has been great for the ordering of my days. Even if I couldn't keep up with the Liturgy of the Hours didn't mean I was giving up altogether.  Because I wanted these times to be fruitful, planning how to pray instead of slowly dozing in and out of the mid afternoon snooze was important.  I longed for a prayer life that harvested a deeper knowledge of Christ.  But being the emotional personality that I am, sometimes my prayers centered too much around the mood of the day rather than the unchanging holiness of God.

Enter in the beauty of Rote prayer. That term can have negative connotations associated with it outside of the Catholic church. Rote prayers, to the unfamiliar Evangelical, seem like a bunch of repeated phrases that never coalesce into a heartfelt longing for God.

Yes, sometimes.  Rote can become formulaic, cold, and distant.  This is similar to the danger that spontaneous prayer can be controlled by emotion and circumstances rather than truth.  Yet in a heart that desires the will of the Lord, both forms can be powerful elements that deepen the interior life, and promote relationship and adoration of Christ.  Pope Benedict, in the book Jesus of Nazareth, states that our prayers,

"can and should be a wholly personal prayer.  But we also constantly need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church.  For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God become subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God. In the formulaic  prayers that arose first from  the faith of Israel and then from the faith of praying members of the Church, we get to know God and ourselves well. They are a "school of prayer" that transforms and opens up our life."

So, I have entered into this "school of prayer," birthed through the written prayers of the Saints.  I have begun to experience a sense of communion with faithful believers who have walked with, known, and loved Jesus at different times in Christianity.  I am learning that to pray their words is to join my often feeble prayer to their intercessions.  The bounds set by time are erased and that glorious cloud of witnesses spoken of in Hebrews seems to be cheering me on in my life of faith.

And it has done wonders for my afternoon quiet times.  That time of the day when the brain energy of a mom has run it's course just in time for the kids to come running in; that time when the morning coffee has run dry and dinner is an endurance test away.  In these times, rote prayer has become a lifeline.  When I cannot think, my friends the Saints think for me.  When my soul knows the greatness of the Lord; but my head is too tired to contemplate on it's own, I am reminded by the Church triumphant that the Mighty One has done Great Things.  In reciting their words, I encounter Jesus in a new light that transforms and allows me to seem him clearer than I ever would have been able to on my own. 

A bit like taking a jazzercise class from a world class gold winning athlete; so too is our reciting the words of Holy men and women of Jesus.  For like St. Paul,  they have "fought the good fight, finished the race, and have kept the faith" (2 Tim 4:7)... and with that knowledge, I can't think of any better coaches to show me the way to the crown of righteousness. (vs 8).