Comments on: More Purpose in Prayer

By: Cynthia L.

Cynthia L. — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:01:54 +0000

That’s beautiful and profound, Martin.

By: Martin Short

Martin Short — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:33:06 +0000

Prayer…To me prayer is something different for everyone. We all pray differently and for good reason. My humble experience has led me to think that Prayer has always been an invitation to God to intervene in our lives and the value of a persistent prayer may be not so much that he will here us but that we will finally hear him.

By: Latter-day Guy

Latter-day Guy — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:27:01 +0000

LOL, funnily enough, yes, I have written a pointed version of Nephi’s psalm! It was a lot of fun to prepare.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:55:52 +0000

Brilliant idea, Latter-day Guy. I think I’ll check this out. Thanks.

By the way, have you ever tried to intone the psalm of Nephi? Now THAT would be cool.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:55:30 +0000

Brillian idea, Latter-day Guy. I think I’ll check this out. Thanks.

By the way, have you ever tried to intone the psalm of Nephi? Now THAT would be cool.

By: Latter-day Guy

Latter-day Guy — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:54:00 +0000

I use a book called The Mundelein Psalter. It’s all in English (my Latin is not so great) and the chant tones are somewhat simplified. An internet site would work, I suppose, but the musical aspect would be difficult to work in, given that for newbies, like me, it is really helpful to have the psalms “pointed” or marked to correspond with the chant tones.

It was a bit complex to learn at first, what with all the flipping to different pages, but the ribbons help with that. If there is a local Catholic church that has, for instance, Sunday Vespers, or at least a helpful priest, I’m sure that they would help you get the hang of it. (I would not recommend using the pre-Vatican II books. It’s much longer –– for instance, all 150 psalms are sung each week, as opposed to each month in the newer books –– and there are more complexities to navigating the books and the whole system.) I usually just use Morning and Evening prayer, sometimes with Night Prayer just before bed. The Office of Readings is quite long and involves lots of patristic readings which are interesting, but would –– for me –– require more doctrinal winnowing than I want while I pray. Anyway, the Office of Readings is not included in the books I have. :)

I also like the fact that it is organized around the Liturgical year; the seasons of Advent and Lent, as preparatory to Christmas and Easter, are particularly helpful.

Anyhow, I’m sure it isn’t for everyone (some of my family members were kind of freaked out by it at first) but it can be very beneficial (not least for adding a further element of habit and daily rhythm to prayer). At least, it has been for me.

By: SteveS

SteveS — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:48:33 +0000

Thanks for sharing, Latter-day Guy. I’ll have to think about using the Office as a launching point. Do you use the “Liturgy of the Hours” in book form, or do you read from an internet site?

By: Latter-day Guy

Latter-day Guy — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:58:51 +0000

(Sorry if this constitutes a threadjack.) This is a fascinating post and conversation. It is something that I have long been interested in, and so, in the last year, with the help of a friend who is a Catholic priest, I incorporated the Divine Office (or Liturgy of the Hours), that is, the monastic method of prayer, into my prayer life. I have found it tremendously fulfilling; I do make some modifications, generally replacing the written prayer itself with an extemporaneous one of the Mormon variety. However, I have loved spending time chanting the psalms, other canticles, and their antiphons as a kind of prelude. I found that their language of praise was something that I had been missing. As a LDS child I was taught about thanking and asking, but not too much time was spent in the kind of praise that takes place in this method of prayer. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested; feel free to adapt as you feel comfortable. Gregorian chant is a wonderful way to allow a scriptural text to unfold itself. (I had a treasured experience listening to a convent of nuns singing Paul’s words about charity, and I’ve never been able to read 1 Corintians 13 without thinking about it.)

By: Tatiana

Tatiana — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:57:53 +0000

Sam R, I too don’t ask for things that involve other people’s agency. But I ask for things for myself quite a lot. “Please help me to love my son as much as he deserves. Please help me to be better worker, mom, daughter, sister”… etc. Help me see the people around me and respond to them as your children. Help me to love. I find these type prayers always are answered.

About other people I mostly pray that they’ll have the information they need to choose wisely, that they will see clearly, that they will understand the importance of their choices. It feels okay to me to pray for those things, not like I’m abrogating their agency, which would be evil.

By: Cynthia L.

Cynthia L. — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:26:24 +0000

SamR, thanks so much for your comment. Sounds like we have a lot in common on this issue, in particular the way you describe not being totally comfortable with some of your own thoughts on it.

As far as the issue of agency, maybe you can pray for these things that you want, but with the idea that God could find a way to carry out your request that wouldn’t involve interfering with agency. For example, by arranging certain helpful experiences for the person that will lead them in the right direction. I dunno, not a silver bullet to be sure, but that’s just something I thought of while reading what you said.

And of course praying about the struggle that you’re having with prayer can’t hurt! That’s kind of the conclusion I came to in my post, as well.