Praying to Mary is worshiping Mary

[robrecht]

You may think it is meaningless into which of my three categories your various prayers fall, and you may not be keeping a tally sheet that would permit a precise response, but I do not see how you could actually be incapable of providing a ballpark estimate as Catholicity has done. That is why I said that your answer seems like a cop out.

Your questions simply do not fit my understanding of prayer. If I were to ask whether you agree more with Pope Pius IX or Pope Pius X about papal infallibility, how would you answer? If you could not prefer one over the other, would it help if I just asked for a ballpark estimate of your preference for one over the other?

Or, to shift to a more personal matter, if I asked you which of your children you loved more, and you could not honestly give me a precise or ballpark answer, and I said that was a cop-out, might you consider me a little bit rude to insist that you ought to answer a personal question with my preferred categories?

[foudroyant]

Foudroyant is hardly limiting his selective interpretation of sources to scripture. He's misusing a wide variety of sources.

An assertion without proof.

[RBerman]

Your questions simply do not fit my understanding of prayer. If I were to ask whether you agree more with Pope Pius IX or Pope Pius X about papal infallibility, how would you answer? If you could not prefer one over the other, would it help if I just asked for a ballpark estimate of your preference for one over the other?

Or, to shift to a more personal matter, if I asked you which of your children you loved more, and you could not honestly give me a precise or ballpark answer, and I said that was a cop-out, might you consider me a little bit rude to insist that you ought to answer a personal question with my preferred categories?

Are you saying that when you pray, you have no particular concept of a specific person whom you are addressing, and do not consciously address anyone in particular? Catholicity mentioned the "Hail Mary" and the Lord's Prayer, both of which have specific audiences in mind.

[robrecht]

Are you saying that when you pray, you have no particular concept of a specific person whom you are addressing, and do not consciously address anyone in particular? Catholicity mentioned the "Hail Mary" and the Lord's Prayer, both of which have specific audiences in mind.

I noticed you didn't answer my question. Cop out. I do say the Our Father and Hail Mary sometimes, but neither particularly often, 'though I'm guessing the Our Father more often. But both of these are verbal prayers, ie, with words, which make up a very small percentage of my prayer, which is primarily nonverbal, contempative. I'm not typically aware of words, more a matter of feelings, joy, or just waiting, perhaps most typically just silently acknowledging the presence of God and goodness in all things, searching for goodness in all people. Sometimes meditating on the scriptures, especially Genesis 1, Philippians 2, or whatever text has been brought to mind recently. My favorite form of prayer is quiet adoration in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, which come to think about it, sounds like prayer to Jesus, but I only think about it as being in the silent presence of Jesus, who is always accompanied by the Father and Holy Spirit. I typically think of Jesus as my brother, with both of us communing in the Spirit and acknowledging the Father who cannot be named, hence not really addressed with words. I don't consciously think of praying to specific saints or angels, but it feels like they are always present. If it feels like God is not present, eg, an arid desert experience, then I might feel especially close to saints who have written about their dark night of the soul. There's one particular painting of St Francis by Cimabue that helps me to meditate on the passion during such times, as he also did.

[RBerman]

I noticed you didn't answer my question. Cop out.

I took your three questions as rhetorical. If you did want answers:

1) I am not familiar enough with their specific statements to comment.

2) If I had absolutely no basis for preferring one over the other, it would not help if you just asked for a ballpark estimate of my preference for one over the other. I am not sure that situation would actually arise, though. If you asked me whether I preferred the distinctives of Mormon doctrine or Jehovah's Witness doctrine, even though I think they are both wrong, I could probably give an intelligible response on the matter.

3) Love is difficult to quantify, and I would not be surprised if the answer was, "I love them all equally." That would not be a cop-out, if it were true. Nor would "I have an answer, but it's none of your business, so I'm not going to tell you" be a cop-out, though it would certainly put an end to the conversation.

I do say the Our Father and Hail Mary sometimes, but neither particularly often, 'though I'm guessing the Our Father more often. But both of these are verbal prayers, ie, with words, which make up a very small percentage of my prayer, which is primarily nonverbal, contempative. I'm not typically aware of words, more a matter of feelings, joy, or just waiting, perhaps most typically just silently acknowledging the presence of God and goodness in all things, searching for goodness in all people. Sometimes meditating on the scriptures, especially Genesis 1, Philippians 2, or whatever text has been brought to mind recently. My favorite form of prayer is quiet adoration in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, which come to think about it, sounds like prayer to Jesus, but I only think about it as being in the silent presence of Jesus, who is always accompanied by the Father and Holy Spirit. I typically think of Jesus as my brother, with both of us communing in the Spirit and acknowledging the Father who cannot be named, hence not really addressed with words. I don't consciously think of praying to specific saints or angels, but it feels like they are always present. If it feels like God is not present, eg, an arid desert experience, then I might feel especially close to saints who have written about their dark night of the soul. There's one particular painting of St Francis by Cimabue that helps me to meditate on the passion during such times, as he also did.

Thank you for clarifying your experience. I would not classify nonverbal meditation as prayer, since all the prayers in the Bible are verbal. But accepting your paradigm, my questions could still stand if reframed with respect to verbal prayers, whether spoken aloud or simply formed as coherent thoughts within your mind.

[robrecht]

I took your three questions as rhetorical. If you did want answers:

1) I am not familiar enough with their specific statements to comment.

2) If I had absolutely no basis for preferring one over the other, it would not help if you just asked for a ballpark estimate of my preference for one over the other. I am not sure that situation would actually arise, though. If you asked me whether I preferred the distinctives of Mormon doctrine or Jehovah's Witness doctrine, even though I think they are both wrong, I could probably give an intelligible response on the matter.

3) Love is difficult to quantify, and I would not be surprised if the answer was, "I love them all equally." That would not be a cop-out, if it were true. Nor would "I have an answer, but it's none of your business, so I'm not going to tell you" be a cop-out, though it would certainly put an end to the conversation.



Thank you for clarifying your experience. I would not classify nonverbal meditation as prayer, since all the prayers in the Bible are verbal. But accepting your paradigm, my questions could still stand if reframed with respect to verbal prayers, whether spoken aloud or simply formed as coherent thoughts within your mind.

Thank you for confirming that you would not answer the question on my terms. You may not consider my life of prayer to be prayer according to your use of the Bible, but I do. Prayerful meditation is indeed prayerful. Perhaps you did not understand that I was speaking about prayerful meditation in response to your question about my prayer life. I think the Bible tells us somewhere to pray always and I doubt that means endlessly repeating merely verbal prayers.

[RBerman]

Thank you for confirming that you would not answer the question on my terms. You may not consider my life of prayer to be prayer according to your use of the Bible, but I do. Prayerful meditation is indeed prayerful. Perhaps you did not understand that I was speaking about prayerful meditation in response to your question about my prayer life.

I do appreciate your clarification that you were talking about prayerful meditation, though I still feel none the wiser as to how you divide the audience of your verbal prayers.

I think the Bible tells us somewhere to pray always and I doubt that means endlessly repeating merely verbal prayers.

I suspect you are referring to this sequence of brief exhortations:

See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:15-22)

You can see all the superlative language here: always, without ceasing, no one, everything, every form, etc. These various injunctions speak to the behaviors and attitudes which should typify the Christian life; one of those is praying. Paul uses the specific word for "without ceasing" here, ἀδιαλείπτως, in three other passages:

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers... (Romans 1:9-10)

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers... (1 Thessalonians 1:3)

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it... (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

All three of these seem like examples of hyperbole, just as you or I might describe something that we do "all the time." "Mentioning you" would be a verbal act which would preclude other simultaneous verbal acts, and we know that Paul did not literally spend 100% of his time verbally mentioning the Roman or Thessalonian churches in prayer; the two would contradict each other, while leaving room for nothing else ever. The point is that Paul often thought of them and prayed for them in a conscious, verbal fashion.

[robrecht]

I do appreciate your clarification that you were talking about prayerful meditation, though I still feel none the wiser as to how you divide the audience of your verbal prayers.



I suspect you are referring to this sequence of brief exhortations:

See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:15-22)

You can see all the superlative language here: always, without ceasing, no one, everything, every form, etc. These various injunctions speak to the behaviors and attitudes which should typify the Christian life; one of those is praying. Paul uses the specific word for "without ceasing" here, ἀδιαλείπτως, in three other passages:

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers... (Romans 1:9-10)

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers... (1 Thessalonians 1:3)

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it... (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

All three of these seem like examples of hyperbole, just as you or I might describe something that we do "all the time." "Mentioning you" would be a verbal act which would preclude other simultaneous verbal acts, and we know that Paul did not literally spend 100% of his time verbally mentioning the Roman or Thessalonian churches in prayer; the two would contradict each other, while leaving room for nothing else ever. The point is that Paul often thought of them and prayed for them in a conscious, verbal fashion.

Unlike the other contexts, I do not consider prayer to be only, merely, or primarily verbal. There is a strong tradition about this in the East and in religious life in the West.

I did guess the I said the Our Father more frequently than the Hail Mary. We recite the former in our liturgy but not the latter. But insofar as I do not really divide the audience of my verbal prayers (see above), I think I've already given you what I consider to be wisdom with respect to this topic.

[One Bad Pig]

Unlike the other contexts, I do not consider prayer to be only, merely, or primarily verbal. There is a strong tradition about this in the East and in religious life in the West.

In the East, sort of. There is a strong tradition of silent prayer (hesychasm), but it is never wordless (in fact, it focuses on the words). Many monastics in the East do succeed in prayer without ceasing, in the sense that once the "Jesus prayer" is repeated often enough it begins to be repeated non-stop in the back of the mind without conscious effort. The ascetic fathers warn that this should not be attempted without spiritual oversight, because it brings to light the bad things we've done or seen as it purifies the mind, and the process can be distressing (and can take months or years).

The "Jesus prayer" is some variant of "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, have mercy on me, a sinner."

[robrecht]

In the East, sort of. There is a strong tradition of silent prayer (hesychasm), but it is never wordless (in fact, it focuses on the words). Many monastics in the East do succeed in prayer without ceasing, in the sense that once the "Jesus prayer" is repeated often enough it begins to be repeated non-stop in the back of the mind without conscious effort. The ascetic fathers warn that this should not be attempted without spiritual oversight, because it brings to light the bad things we've done or seen as it purifies the mind, and the process can be distressing (and can take months or years).

The "Jesus prayer" is some variant of "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Thanks, One Bad Pig. It's been a long, long time since I've read anything about the Jesus prayer or Eastern spirituality in general. I vaguely recall someone saying that the prayer may be reduced to a single word, eg, 'Jesus' or 'mercy'. Does that sound familiar? The West agrees whole-heartedly regarding the necessity of spiritual direction in contempative prayer. I understand the prayer of presence, in which one is united with the whole church, to be a little less individualized than the long form of the Jesus prayer, ie, ... have mercy on me, a miserable sinner, but those words would become so ingrained as to become an unconscious part of one's self understanding so I would not understand these, or any other, words of the prayer to be lost, just not necessarily part of one's immediate consciousness. Are there good sources on hesychasm that discuss other prayers besides the Jesus Prayer. Also, while I would not expect to find prayers addressed to angels and saints, is their presence or communal participation ever discussed in hesychasm?

[One Bad Pig]

Thanks, One Bad Pig. It's been a long, long time since I've read anything about the Jesus prayer or Eastern spirituality in general. I vaguely recall someone saying that the prayer may be reduced to a single word, eg, 'Jesus' or 'mercy'. Does that sound familiar?

Not especially.

The West agrees whole-heartedly regarding the necessity of spiritual direction in contempative prayer. I understand the prayer of presence, in which one is united with the whole church, to be a little less individualized than the long form of the Jesus prayer, ie, ... have mercy on me, a miserable sinner, but those words would become so ingrained as to become an unconscious part of one's self understanding so I would not understand these, or any other, words of the prayer to be lost, just not necessarily part of one's immediate consciousness.

From what I understand, in hesychasm the words are always a part of one's consciousness, though not necessarily in the foreground.

Are there good sources on hesychasm that discuss other prayers besides the Jesus Prayer.

I don't recall any, though I haven't yet read nearly as much as I'd like to on the topic.

Also, while I would not expect to find prayers addressed to angels and saints, is their presence or communal participation ever discussed in hesychasm?

Generally, the presence of such is to be rejected, as the focus is to be exclusively on God. Exceptions are made for those who have progressed sufficiently that the presence of angels/saints no longer distracts them, but few reach such heights.

[Paprika]

Is there any tradition of prayer based on Romans 8, ie. "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words"?

[One Bad Pig]

Is there any tradition of prayer based on Romans 8, ie. "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words"?

Not AFAIK. The Spirit can and does intercede for us, but we need to keep praying ourselves.

This prayer is in my prayer book:

O Lord, I do not know what to ask of You. You alone know what my real needs are. You love me more than I myself know how to love. Help me to see my real needs which are hidden from me. I am afraid to ask for either a cross or consolation. I can only wait on You. My heart is open to You. Visit me and help me for the sake of Your great mercy. Strike me and heal me, cast me down and raise me up. In silence I worship Your holy will and Your ways which are beyond understanding. I offer myself as a sacrifice to You. I put all my trust in You. I want nothing more than to fulfill Your will. Teach me how to pray. Pray Yourself in me. Amen.

[robrecht]

Not especially.

From what I understand, in hesychasm the words are always a part of one's consciousness, though not necessarily in the foreground.

I don't recall any, though I haven't yet read nearly as much as I'd like to on the topic.

Generally, the presence of such is to be rejected, as the focus is to be exclusively on God. Exceptions are made for those who have progressed sufficiently that the presence of angels/saints no longer distracts them, but few reach such heights.

Thanks. Good point about distraction. I consider their presence as a help, not a distraction. I really resonated with your earlier quote from St. Clement of Alexandria:

"In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer]"

Miscellanies 7:12
Alexandria, AD 208

[Pentecost]

Is there any tradition of prayer based on Romans 8, ie. "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words"?

Pentecostalism. We believe that the gift of tongues is basically the ability to speak the heavenly tongue of the Spirit, and by the practice we are actively praying for things we might not know to pray for. A common experience for those wih tongues that I have spoken to is that we will pray as best we can but if we don't know what to say to God we'll say it in tongues. Even if it is intercessory prayer I've never seen it done in a way where it is meant to be more than that persons personal prayer. Definitely not something I've seen done by a Pastor to a congregation.

--
It's fascinating to read about the supposed intercession by dead saints and the use of icons, and a standard liturgy. I'm personally curious about exploring the latter two for myself.