Wrestling with Liturgical Prayer

I wrote this in response to reading John Cassian's Conferences, a desert father's view on prayer:

"Cassian suggest the idea that we take Psalms 69:2 (Should be Psalm 70:1) as a formula prayer for piety. He suggests this because it fits into all situations. He follows on with this giving multiple examples of how one could use this in any scenario. Cassian says this verse of “Come to my help, O God; Lord, hurry to my rescue” will protect one from all devilish attacks but rather purify one of all sin and a continuous prayer to God. Through this continuous prayer, we would come to recognize we are in constant need of God’s help and is satisfied with simplicity. 

This passage draws a few problems for me as I reflect upon this: 

1. Are our prayers supposed to be a mantra? If we are to pray what Cassian suggests, it seems to lack authenticity of talking to a very personal and intimate creator. I find that this prayer neglects human responsibility and of really submitting our thoughts and desires to God and letting God have control, rather I would reflect upon the prayer of Jesus of “Not my will, but yours be done” to be a better example of what we should pray. 

2. The prayer although very genuine, could easily turn into a cliché and loses it significance. If we are to teach our children this, as Cassian suggests, we must also be able to teach our children on how to reflect on our lives as this prayer seems to continuously call us to do. I’m not sure if young children are able to come to this idea of self reflection, but perhaps this is what we need, as Jesus said we are to be like children to enter the kingdom of God."

Love to hear some thoughts.

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