Have any one of you ever attended a catholic mass? It would be more expedient to resolve the "confusion" boatbums claims I have caused by comparing an example of prayer from our respective places of worship. I am not familiar with how protestants pray. If you would be so kind as to each post an example of a prayer used by your faith community, I will respond with examples of catholic prayer. Can we agree upon this?
Kinda hard to do; since they are spontaneous; not written and repeated again and again and again.
Ya mean that I have not posted ENOUGH of them for you?
Elsie is right on that about prayers.
No Evangelical church I have ever attended prays already composed prayers, such as the Hail Mary or Our Father, as recited in Catholicism. They are not prayed over and over again as if they have some power in and of themselves that moves God to act by virtue of certain words being spoken.
Most prayers in Evangelicalism model the Lord's Prayer in that it begins with addressing God the Father, usually thanks Him for His provision, confesses sin, asks for the enlightening of the Holy Spirit to receive what He has for us to hear that the preacher is speaking about or what they are reading in Scripture, show us how to apply it to our lives, sometimes when needed - asks for healing of the person.
It's far more conversational as we believe that we are literally addressing our FATHER, who is a person, who loves and cares for us, and responds to spontaneous out pouring of our heart to Him.
I see canned prayers more as a child going up to his father and reciting poetry at him and thinking that's communicating with him, that it somehow pleases him. Any human father would much more rather have the child tell him what he(the child) is thinking than hearing him recite poetry, flowery and maybe nice as it may sound.
What I see Catholic prayer being treated as is more of a incantation or religious obligation. If the Catholic prays so many of such prayer, then it satisfies some kind of obligation and God will grant the person's request.
I would be surprised to find any former Catholics who ever saw it any different.
Do non-Catholics sometimes print prayers? Yes.
Do they sometimes pray those? Yes. Especially if it expresses what is in their heart.
But as a rule, canned prayer is avoided.
Some examples of pre-printed prayer can be found in the Tozer threads which I will link to in another post so I don't have to waste time with HTML'ing them.
At the end of the following threads is a prayer just as an example of how ONE person prayed at one time, (Probably 60-70 years ago)
Most people I know don’t talk like that any more.
Following Hard after God - Chapter 1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3242852/posts
The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing - Chapter 2
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3243934/posts
Removing the Veil - Chapter 3
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3245815/posts
Apprehending God - Chapter 4
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3247448/posts
The Universal Presence - Chapter 5
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3250069/posts
The Speaking Voice - Chapter 6
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3253136/posts
The Gaze of the Soul - Chapter 7
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3255578/posts
Restoring the Creator-creature Relation - Chapter 8
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3257456/posts
This isn’t so complicated as that. You were discussing things along the lines of personal prayer in general (”do you ask others to pray for you”) without the need to mention church services. Personal prayers. I’ve seen Catholics here mentioning they individually pray the prayer of “Our Lady of” this or that. And they mean it in the plain, ordinary, straightforward usage of “prayer,” of supernatural communication. What Muslims do five times a day towards Islam’s false god, and what atheists aren’t willing to do, because even though they “pray” all the time to people, in asking them things, they deny the supernatural and will not say they pray in the commonly understood sense of the word.
Have any one of you ever attended a catholic mass? It would be more expedient to resolve the "confusion" boatbums claims I have caused by comparing an example of prayer from our respective places of worship. I am not familiar with how protestants pray. If you would be so kind as to each post an example of a prayer used by your faith community, I will respond with examples of catholic prayer.
Other than some additional comments from Faith ... silence. EagleOne, you seemed surprised in an earlier comment, that Catholics read scripture. Now it is my turn to be surprised. I fully expected that your immediate response would be from scripture. In both Luke 11 and Matthew 6, our Lord was in a certain place, praying. When he had finished, his disciples asked him: “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” And he taught them the prayer we Catholics (and I presume you too), call the "Our Father". That prayer is the pre-eminent one that Catholics pray, alone or in community.
If you have ever attended a Catholic mass, you would probably be surprised how all the prayers derive from scripture. For example, The Gloria.
Glory to God in the highest, (Lk. 2:14)
and peace to his people on earth. (Rev 19:6)
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, (Rev 22:9; Eph 5:20; Rev 7:2)
we worship you, we give you thanks,
we praise you for your glory. (2 Jn 3; Phil 2:11; Jn 1:29)
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, (Rom 8:34)
you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us; (Lk 4:34; Lk 1:32, Jn 14:26)
you are seated at the right
hand of the Father, receive our prayer.
For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit
in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
To the above, I would add one of the most ancient prayers in the Church (both Catholic and Orthodox). It is the Trisagion (Gr) or "thrice holy" prayer:
Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.
It originated from Nicodemus. While taking the body of Christ off the cross with Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus saw Christ's eyes open then shouted "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal". Around the globe, in every Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Church, this prayer is chanted at every Divine Liturgy ... every day of the week. Even the Latin (Roman) Church retains this prayer on Good Friday. It is also part of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, that many of us pray each dat at 3pm, the hour at which our Lord died on the cross, for us.
Spiritual growth requires us to form a consistent habit of prayer. Because prayer is a relationship with Jesus, we need to find the ways of praying that fit our personality and our relationship with our Lord. These include:
Charismatic: based on an active, experienced relationship with the Holy Spirit. It is often characterized as “emotional” prayer, and there is definitely a more emotional dimension to it. But the focus of charismatic prayer is on relationship.
Meditative: Also known as the “Divine Office,” Liturgy of the Hours is the traditional prayer that priests and religious are required to pray throughout the day. Many lay people, myself included, follow this daily approach that consists of prayers, psalms, and readings from both the Old and New Testaments.
Contemplative: thinking about the mysteries and truths of our faith in a way that leads us to greater intimacy with God. For example, meditating on a scene in scripture and placing yourself there. In meditative prayer, you are both an eyewitness and participant to the events unfolding. (Ex: John 5 - the Pool of Bethesda)
There are many methods to pray. Ultimately, the goal remains the same for Catholics and Evangelicals, and that is to draw closer to Jesus, and hopefully, model our lives after His.
Your thoughts and examples of prayer in your faith denomination. Pax et Bonum