The Newness of Ritual


God loves repetition. He Himself does things over and over and over again. This was pointed out admirably by GK Chesterton. Jesus said that for us to enter heaven we must be like a child. And one quality a child has is his love for repetition. Throw a child up in the air and catch him. He will laugh and say “Again!” So you do it again. He will then say “Again!” A child can spend hours with the same wind-up toy. He can watch the Wizard of Oz over and again. When we become adults, we lose our wonder with the world. We become easily bored.

 

But God Himself has this child-like quality. Every morning He says “Again!” There is another sunrise. Every evening He says “Again!” There is another sunset. The earth revolves around the sun. God says “Again!” The earth revolves around the sun another year. Even our very existence, what holds our atoms together, is by the word of His power. 

A very big to success in life is for us to capture God’s child-like attitude of being able to say “Again!” Instead, we tend to say “I’m bored!”

 

Prayer

 

There is no place more that we need to love repetition as in prayer. There is a ritual to prayer. A successful prayer life is a repetitive prayer life.

 

This was a hard lesson for me to understand in my Protestant days. That was a big criticism at Catholics – all those repetitive prayers such as the Rosary. Surely this cannot be right! Instead of all those repetitive prayers, God wants a genuine, spontaneous conversation with us. The Protestants would use these verses to show that God hates repetitive prayer:

 

And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.

Matthew 6:7

 

So they would argue that in prayer God hates repetition. Here are the words of Jesus! We should not use repetition! We should think that God will hear us because of our many words!

 

But this is not exactly what Jesus said. He was not against repetition, but meaningless repetition. Meaningless repetition is the prayer of an adult, not a child. The adult outwardly prays repetitively, but in his heart he is bored and looks forward to the end of his prayers. He is not praying from his heart. He thinks that God will answer him for his many words. A person who has a child-like attitude toward prayer enjoys the repetitiveness in prayer and not because God is keeping count on how many times we pray a prayer. God is looks at the heart, and repetitiveness in prayer is the way of conditioning the heart toward God.

Try this little experiment with me. Pray this simple prayer three times. Just repeat three times this short prayer “I love you, my Lord Jesus”. But do not just pray this three times. Pray it very slowly, make each prayer more fervent than the previous. Each time you pray it, lock out more and more distractions that may come to you mind. Each time you pray it, concentrate a little more on Jesus, on who He is and what He has done for you. If you did this properly, you would find that the last time you prayed it was more from your heart than the first. So, yes, God looks at the heart and not how many times we pray a prayer. God is more pleased with one heartfelt Our Father than 1,000 half-hearted Our Father’s. But if the person gives more of his heart to God each time he prays the Our Father, then eventually what is in his heart will be very pleasing to God.

It is interesting that Jesus gave in the following verses the Our Father. If Jesus was against repetitive prayer, then He contradicted Himself by giving us a rote prayer that can and has been repeated over and over again. Ask yourself this question: Have I ever prayed the Our Father in my life more than once? If the answer is “Yes”, then you are guilty of repetitive prayer.

But this is even more to the point. As a Protestant, I notice how repetitive the spontaneous, conversational prayers were! This is the typical prayer I heard at a prayer meeting:

God, I just want to praise your name. God, I just want to thank you for loving us. Lord God, I just want to ask you to {fill in the blank}. And, God, I just want to ask you to {fill in the blank}. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen!

It is amazing how the same person would then pray the same impromptu, spontaneous prayer the next week! I found the same with my own prayers, even when I was a minister. I found that that my conversations with God were awfully redundant.

But as a Catholic, I have memorized about a half-dozen prayers that I say throughout the day. I find my prayers have more variety in them now than praying the same redundant, impromptu prayers as a minister. Do not misunderstand me. I still just talk to God in expressing what is in my heart. But I do not force it. The same old spontaneous, impromptu prayer can be just as much a meaningless repetition as praying the Our Father over and over again. Both can become just an empty habit. But I found that praying some memorized prayers repetitively helps me to concentrate more on being in the presence of God and less on what I am going to say next. And by sensing that I am in the presence of God, I am more open to the Holy Spirit so that I can then talk intimately with God from the heart. I then put far more thought into my conversational prayers. My best conversation prayers have come after praying some rote prayer such as the Rosary.

As I shared in my personal testimony, after I left my ministry, I went years without praying to God. Every time I tried to have a conversation with God, my hurtful memories would come back. God saved me from this living hell of a life without Him by introducing me to the Rosary. I did some investigation in the Bible. I was surprised that the Bible was filled with repetitive prayer. Here are some passages:

1: O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever.  

2: O give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures for ever.  

3: O give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

4: to him who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

5: to him who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

6: to him who spread out the earth upon the waters, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

7: to him who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

8: the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

9: the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

10: to him who smote the first-born of Egypt, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

11: and brought Israel out from among them, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

12: with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

13: to him who divided the Red Sea in sunder, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

14: and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

15: but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

16: to him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

17: to him who smote great kings, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

18: and slew famous kings, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

19: Sihon, king of the Amorites, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

20: and Og, king of Bashan, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

21: and gave their land as a heritage, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

22: a heritage to Israel his servant, for his steadfast love endures for ever.  

23: It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

24: and rescued us from our foes, for his steadfast love endures for ever;  

25: he who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures for ever.  

26: O give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures for ever. 

Psalm 136

Every single verse end with “for his steadfast love endures forever”. That is a lot of repetition!

 

8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, `Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.'

Rev 4:8

These creatures in heaven constantly pray that prayer, day and night without ceasing. That is a lot of repetition!

39: And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." 

40: And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, "So, could you not watch with me one hour? 

41: Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." 

42: Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done." 

43: And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 

44: So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words.

Matthew 26

Three times Jesus repeated His prayer to the Father. Is this not repetition? Of course it is! This shows that Jesus had nothing against repetition. It is empty repetition that He detests.

Paul wrote “Pray with ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). But as a Protestant, I found this untenable. I could not go throughout the day having an impromptu, spontaneous, non-repetitive conversation with God. My mind was preoccupied with too many other things throughout the day. If I were to try to carry out a conversation with God while I at work, my work would suffer. I could not concentrate on my work and think what I was going to pray next to God! So I started to think that Paul did not really mean that. Paul must have just meant that we need to constantly acknowledge God’s presence, but not that we should actually pray at all times! So this is what I thought for a long time. But then when I returned as a Catholic, I once read that Pope John was always moving his lips. What he was doing was praying without ceasing! I also read that St Padre Pio prayed the Rosary 20 times every day! Since praying the Rosary takes about 20 minutes then that would mean he prayed it every waking minute! In both cases, this would not have been possible without rote prayers.

In the early centuries, Christians in the East had a simple prayer that they repeated throughout the day, called “The Jesus Prayer”. This prayer was simply this: Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  This prayer is based on Luke 18:13. They would pray this throughout the day while they did their chores.

So try this out. Pray this prayer throughout the day. While you are getting into you car, pray “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. While you are waiting for the bus or the train, pray “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. While you are waiting for your computer to boot up, pray “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. When you get up for some coffee, pray quietly “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. When calling someone and you are on hold, pray “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. And notice to see if you have more of the sense of the presence of Christ throughout the day, and that you feel you are keeping the Bible’s command to “pray without ceasing”.

 

In the early centuries, some of the religious had memorized all the Psalms and prayed them throughout the day as they did their daily chores. There are 150 Psalms in the Bible. For most people this was much for them to memorize. So as the centuries went by, the Church made this practice simpler by replacing each Psalm with a Hail Mary.  The Hail Mary is a prayer based on the Bible. The first half of the prayer is taken exactly from the Bible – Luke 1:28 and Luke 1:42. The second part of the prayer is asking Mary to pray for us – based on a Biblical command that we should pray for each other (I dealt elsewhere that our praying for each other extends to those who are in heaven). Before each Hail Mary, the Church inserted an Our Father, which is also based in the Bible (Mathew 6:8.-10). So the Rosary is a Biblical prayer! Now, the Church realized that is still difficult to pray 15 Our Fathers and 150 Hail Mary’s every day, so they broke them down to 5 Our Fathers and 50 Hail Mary’s prayed in each day. The Church then added meditations on the life and work of Christ for each decade prayed (1 Our Father and 10 Hail Mary’s). Pope John Paul then added other meditations onto the Rosary.

 

The Holy Spirit led the early Christians and the Church to give us the Rosary that we have today. It is amazing to me how many Christians believe that the Holy Spirit can lead them into whom they should marry, but have a problem believing that the Holy Spirit can lead the Church to do God’s will. How many times have I heard a Christian say that he or she was led by the Holy Spirit to a certain job or to move to a certain place to live! You can find book shelves full on the topic on how to discern God’s will for our life at the neighborhood Bible Book Store. So why could not the Holy Spirit lead the Church throughout the centuries on the prayer that pleases God?

 

Some may object that by praying so many more Hail Mary’s than Our Father’s that this shows that Mary is exalted over God. But this logic does not hold water when used on Bible. The Book of Esther does not mention God at all. Should we conclude from this that the Book of Esther is not God-centered? Of course not! Mentioning God often is not necessary for it to be God-centered – just has the praying of the Our Father less than the Hail Mary in the Rosary does not indicate that the Rosary is more Mary-centered than God-centered. Of the 20 meditations assigned to the Rosary, only three are meditations on Mary. Pope John Paul II taught to the faithful Catholics that the Rosary was always intended to be Christ-centered.

 

The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium. It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love.

ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20021016_rosarium-virginis-mariae_en.html

 

 

Marriage

 

As I said before, the way we handle repetition is a big factor in our success in life. This is not only in our prayer like, but also in our relationships with others, especially in marriage. Even here we must develop that child-like quality of being able to constantly say “Again!”  We need to treat the repetitiveness of every day with the same wonder as a child being able to do things over and again as if he is doing it for the very first time. Our failure to do this is the biggest reason that today more than half of all marriages end in divorce. We simply get bored waking up to the same person every day. Most of our days are filled with repetition. And people get tired of the repetition. So they cheat on their spouses, and even leave their spouses for someone newer and fresher, only to find themselves in the same rut down the road. The solution is not changing the partner but changing your attitude.

 

Relationships

 

Most of the time we spend with another is on ritual. When a man is courting a woman, he is doing the customary courtship ritual. When two friends meet, it is filled with the customary rituals of shaking hands, hi how are you, how is the wife and kids, etc. We have the family ritual of have dinner every together every night. These rituals are important. For instance, studies now show that it is important that families regularly have dinner together.

 

So people think they can bypass these rituals and skip to the meaningful part. Many parents think that they do not have to spend much time with their kids, as long as they spend “quality time” with their kids. But quality time cannot be forced. You cannot turn to someone and say, “OK, let’s for the next hour have a real meaningful, intimate conversation with each other!” You would not know what to say! True intimacy with another is more spontaneous. So we need the ritual of small talk, and quantity time with another, because we never know when that quality time will happen. We never know when that true intimate moment may hit.

 

 

Work

 

Thomas Edison once said that genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. That perspiration is the same thing as repetition – doing things over and over again. Edison would be inspired by an idea, but the hard part is then all those hours of repeating the experiments over and over again to validate that idea. I myself am a computer programmer. The fun part in programming is the actual coding. The hard part is testing my code, which requires hours an hours of repeated testing. A singer, dancer, or actor loves to perform his talent in front of others. But what is not so fun is all those hours of repetitively practicing that performance beforehand. Practice make perfect.

 

Most of our work is redundant. What we did today was done 1,000 times beforehand. The key is for us to see our work as new, even though it is redundant. It is being that small child, saying after 1,001th time “Again!”

 

Exercise

 

This is an area I definitely need work on. But when I drive to work on a summer day, I often see the same joggers. Everyday they repeat the same exercises. This takes discipline, and discipline requires do the same activity day after day after day.

 

How to see repetitiveness as being new each time

 

So how does a person treat the mundane, repetitive actives of everyday existence with the freshness of a little child? The Book of Eccelesiastes shows this solution.  Solomon starts out saying:

 

Meaningless! Meaningless!"
       says the Teacher.
       "Utterly meaningless!
       Everything is meaningless

 

Ecclesiastes 1:2

 

Life is meaningless. Why? It is because life is filled with repetition.

 

8 All things are wearisome,
       more than one can say.
       The eye never has enough of seeing,
       nor the ear its fill of hearing.

 9 What has been will be again,
       what has been done will be done again;
       there is nothing new under the sun.

 10 Is there anything of which one can say,
       "Look! This is something new"?
       It was here already, long ago;
       it was here before our time.

Ecc 1

 

There is nothing new under the sun. Everything is repetition, there nothing new.

 

But, contrary to what many people think, Ecclesiastes is not a depressing book - not at all! In fact, the book shows how one can experience fullness in even the most mundane, repetitive things of our drab everyday existence. Solomon ends Ecclesiastes by saying:

 

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Ecclesiates 12:13, 14

 

 

My Old Testament professor at Trinity seminary, Dr. Walt Kaiser, pointed out to us that in the Hebrew the word “duty” was absent. So it really says “that is the whole of everyone”, or better yet, “that is the fullness of everyone”. So Solomon is saying that unless we apply his solution, we will be empty. Our life will be nothing but empty repetition. So what do we need to experience this fullness? Solomon says two things – fear God and keep His commandments.

 

Many Evangelicals say that we should not fear God. They will quote the following verses:

 

18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love

1 John 4:18

 

But this passage does not say that we no longer have to fear God anymore. It just says that those who reached perfection in love no longer have a fear of God. And that is the teaching of the Catholic Church. The Church teaches us that the highest motive to serve God in out of pure love for Him. But if we cannot serve God out of love, God still accepts the motive of fear. There are saints who are so perfected in love that they are not bothered at all by the threat of hell. It is not that they do not believe in hell, or that it is still not a possibility for them to go to hell. They do not care what happens to them, they just love God! Frankly, I have to admit that I myself have not reached that state. I love God. But there is a part in me of a selfish, what’s-in-for-me type of attitude. So I sometimes need a bit of motivation. I still need some motivation of the fear of hell, or the threat of purgatory, or the promise of the fullness of life to spur me on.

 

15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption

Roman 8:15

 

Paul is writing of a paralyzing fear. It is that kind of fear that Adam and Eve had when they hid from God.  This fear falls away from God and hides. But that is not what Solomon is writing about. His fear is a fear that draws us toward God, not away from Him. So even though God is a God who will render to everyone according to what he had done (see Ecc 12:14) , that does not draw us away from God, but toward Him.

 

There are other verses in the New Testament that say we should fear God. See 1 Peter 2:17, Revelation 14:17, Acts 9:17, Luke 12:5, 2 Cor 5:11, Phil 2:12, Hebrews 10:26, 27. So the New Covenant did not take away our need to fear God.

 

We must keep His commandments. In other words, in all our circumstances, we need to do it under obedience to God. This will take the emptiness out of our drab, mundane, repetitive lives, because we know that God will render to us everything we do in all circumstances. There is no such thing an empty activity. Everything we do should be to the glory of God, and under His commands. If we do this, even when it is difficult to do, then do our actions will have eternal significance. This is the message of St Therese of Liseaux – there is no act too small that would not please God, if we do it out of love for Him. If we had that that attitude, we will not feel that anything we do is meaningless. Instead we would experience God’s fullness in the most mundane activity. This is not to mean that we will not ever experience the “dark night of the soul”. But even in the “dark night of the soul” we experience the fullness of life.

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