Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Codified prayer vs. adhoc prayer

Question:

Could you comment on the what one could call, for lack of a better term, codified prayer with repetition, and its importance in Orthodox or Catholic Christian practice (the Jesus prayer, Hail Mary, the Nicene Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the whole Divine Liturgy, etc) and what the varied North American Christian denominations miss when they focus exclusively on spontaneous, what some of them call 'from the soul' prayer?  I've had discussions with a Baptist who was convinced that a more true prayer is one that is spontaneous, from the soul, rather than a mechanical, in their understanding a 'going through the motions' prayer.

Response:

Dr. Alexander Roman alex.roman@unicorne.org

There are those, especially in some evangelical and Pentecostal denominations, who are against liturgical prayer saying that it doesn’t “come from the soul” because it isn’t spontaneous.  They are equally against any sort of “repetitive prayer” for the same reason.

Christians have prayed formal, set prayers, especially the Psalms, for two thousand years.  Zealous Christians would often pray the entire book of Psalms every day.  Then there is the Lord’s Prayer which is the set form given to us by Christ Himself.  So what are we to make of this?

We can and should pray in our own words and whenever we can.  This is especially true when we come across daily situations when we need to call upon God’s help and mercy in our lives and in those of others via intercessory prayer.  We praise and thank God and can do so with whatever words we choose (or even in silence, with a burning heart full of love and adoration).

We know that the Apostles used liturgical, repetitive prayers and in the Greek Acts of the Apostles we find the word “Leiturgoukon” which clearly indicates a liturgical usage for prayer.  In the Gospel of John when Christ was in the Garden prior to His Crucifixion, there are noted several short prayers which our Lord used “repeating the same words” for an hour at a time.

When we use the Jesus Prayer and repeat it slowly over and over, what we are doing is letting the ultimate meaning of those words permeate our minds and very being.  I have repeated the Lord’s Prayer many times over the years, but there is never a time that I say it that I don’t experience something new or a greater depth to the words.  It can be the case that God wishes us to focus on a certain phrase of the Lord’s Prayer or the Psalms and so inspires us to keep our spiritual gaze on it in deeper meditation.  For me, the words “Give us this day our daily Bread” has opened up new considerations about how we are not only asking God for the physical things we need in our daily lives, but, more importantly, for Christ Himself, the “living Bread Who has come down from heaven” and Who communicates Himself to us in His Word and in the Eucharist.  And how else can we consider the nature of the Bread we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer when we consider that it was taught us by the One Who said that “man does not live by bread (meaning the perishable kind) alone?”

Repetition can therefore (and should always be) a way to deepen our understanding of the great prayers given to us by Christ and inspired by the Holy Spirit!

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