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.
1 comment:
Hey dude, it's been a while. I happen to come across ur facebook entry while taking a break preparing for a presentation due Tommorow. Hvn't prepared much for this, it's 4:48 in the morning, but i'll throw out some of my intial thoughts (haha, i miss our phone convos, or chilling in ur honda at 3 in the am talking about this kind a stuff). i don't think i will address each of ur issues repectively. I'll throw in what i think, and hopefully the thoughts as a whole will at least push for some further discussions on ur inquiries.
APPROACH:
First of all, i think we need to discuss our approach to anything we like to consider in "Chrisitianity."
i think liturgies in any form, wehther it be prayer or a specific type of ritual, and any type of rituals/traditions done in this religion, in itself contains fundamentally aspects of the nature of God, and what Christ has done for us. First off, we need to look at the Trinity. God-head, the son, and the spirit, are three one, and like the name "I AM WHO I AM," is fully sufficient, whole, and complete in Himself; One God and three persons, each of the three is fully and entirely one. Within God, love and relationship of the God-head, the son, and the Holy Spirit, as displayed by His nature then, is also perfect. Here alone we hv three ideas, tho they are not exclusive(for the purpose of this disccusion, i'm just gonna call it the '3 ideas'):
1. sense of community/relationship in perfect unity,
2. sustainability/completeness, and
3. the worship of God/or something that reminds us of him that leads us to worship Him.
What does that mean for us? Well, Christ came and he died for us, ultimately restoring us towards to that relationship with God. With that, we are called to love and reflect that nature of God (ie. which includes the 3 things listed above) in our relationship to everything created around us; whether it be:
a) nature
b) those we call brothers, sisters, and mothers in Christ
c) those who do not "know" Christ (let's save the discussion here for another time, eh?)
With that being said, this expands into the different spheres of our own individual life. Any form of worship/tradition/ritual in our life then, reflects the very aspects we have mentioned above. Since, we;re talking about prayers, let's focus and limit our discussion on that.
For example, prayer. Prayer happens in two sitatuions: 1) we pray to God personally (with the spirit of course) and 2) pray together as a community TO God. Most ppl, have the most intense, intimate and personal prayers with God; from biblical times David (a major one), John the Apostle; after the "Christ" at the culmination of time, especially part of the especially of the Contemplative tradition: desert fathers and mothers, gregory of nyssa, thomas merton (btw you should've taken the prophets course at UBC, it was really really interesting), etc. The content of these prayers, whatever they might be, essentially reflect the '3 ideas,' but in the capacity of the relationship between an individual and God.
Then we have prayers we pray as a community. We have prayers that we pray for one another. Once again, whatever the content maybe, the '3 ideas' are relfected, but this time, in the all of the following capacities:
1) our relationship with OTHERS,
2) our relationship with God,
3) the relationship of others with God,and
4) our relationship with others AND God.
These communal prayers, even though they are communal, are personal, as it touches and reflects the '3 ideas' in all the capacities listed above. When that occurs, our personal prayers from our own intimate times used in communal worship, simply because of the nature of prayer.
YOUR ISSUES:
Mantras and Cliches?
Repetitive prayers and prayers that can be recited many times, or what you called "liturgical prayer," is EXTREMELY EXTREMELY useful, if it completes the '3 ideas.' In our person prayers then, a liturgical prayers are extremely useful because the content should always put ur mind, and heart back into perspective, in the capacity of the relationship between you and God:
1. sense of community/relationship in perfect unity: You come to remember that Christ has restored you back to God and what that means for you.
2. sustainability/completeness: That the Lord God doeth all things well, and that only in Him you have life.
3. the worship of God/or something that reminds us of him that leads us to worship Him: you simply worship him because God is God.
Without discussing further, liturgical prayers prayed in the community of the church should also reflect these ideas in the 4 capacities listed above.
When prayer is prayed in these capacities, they do not neglects human responsibility and of really submitting our thoughts and desires to God and letting God have control, but rather, it does complete the opposite. I wouldn't go so far as to focus on the words of the prayer, but rather, on the nature, purpose, and meaning behind the prayer. If it's right, every prayer is: "Not my will, but Yours be done." Every prayer, no matter if it's liturgical or not, becomes cliche without this focus.
Ah, the beauty of liturgy.
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